Peter Knox began his primary school education at Old Guildford Public School, New South Wales (NSW) and completed it at Yennora Public School, NSW. He attended Chester Hill High School, NSW and attained the NSW Intermediate Certificate in 1964 (the final year it was handed out). Though he stayed at high school the following year with the hope of attaining the (then) new School Certificate, a social revolution intervened and he dropped out before sitting the exam.
Through the rest of the 1960s, until the late 1980s, Knox was a professional entertainer/musician, embracing contemporary electric music in its various forms. During that time he played bass, sang and wrote songs and dialogue for showbands The 69ERS and The Zarsoff Brothers, as well as playing bass in numerous other bands (see The Who's Who of Australian Rock).
Knox completed a correspondence course in short story writing in the late 1970s, which led to some publications in various journals (including the Nation Review and Van Ikin's Enigma and Science Fiction magazines). In 1990, he completed a tertiary bridging course at the University of Wollongong, which allowed him to matriculate to that institution. He completed a Bachelor of Creative Arts with Honours in 1994, with a double major in creative writing and English studies. While working full-time in the community development and welfare fields (and continuing to play music on the weekends) Knox completed a Masters with Honours in English Studies at Wollongong in 2000. His thesis was titled Once Upon a Place: Writing the Illawarra. Knox began PhD research on nineteenth-century Australian writer Melinda Kendall in 2004. He also wrote the non-fiction work The Errant Apostrophe : The Linguistic Pedant's Companion, published in 1994 by the University of Wollongong Writers' Group.
