Janette Turner Hospital was born in Melbourne on 12 November 1942 and grew up in Queensland. She earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Queensland in 1965 before moving to Canada, where she completed a Master of Arts at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, in 1973. She has held various teaching positions in Canada, the United States and Australia. Her writing has received numerous honours and awards, including the Canadian Seal First Novel Award for her debut novel The ivory swing (1982). In 2003, she was awarded the Patrick White Award, Queensland Premier's Literary Award, and an honorary doctorate from the University of Queensland. She has also been shortlisted twice for the Miles Franklin Literary Award, in 1989 and 1993. In addition to novels and short stories, Turner Hospital has contributed to magazines in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. Her work is widely represented in Australian and international literary collections. Her crime thriller, A very proper death (1990), was written under the pseudonym Alex Juniper. She is Carolina Distinguished Professor Emerita at the University of South Carolina, where she taught for twelve years. In 2010, she was a visiting professor at Columbia University in New York, and has also held an adjunct professorship at the University of Queensland.