New Zealand-born Jennifer Compton first came to Australia in the early 1970s after studying drama and working as an actress and stage manager; she settled permanently in Australia in 1983. Compton attended the Playwrights' Studio at the National Institute of Dramatic Art after her arrival in Sydney. During her year there she wrote her award-winning play Crossfire. In addition to her stage plays Compton has written plays for ABC Radio and for NZBC and has written episodes for the ABC Television series Certain Women.
Compton is also a prize-winning and much-published poet. In 1996 she was the first poet to win a New South Wales Writers' Fellowship. The Fellowship enabled her to complete her collection Speaking with Voices.
Compton has lived for an extended period at Wingello, in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales. In 2006 she was the writer-in-residence at the B. R. Whiting Library in Rome.
