Miriam Zolin lived in Melbourne until the age of thirteen when her parents moved the family to Swifts Creek, East Gippsland in order to live by subsistence agriculture. Zolin was educated at home and had little contact with people outside her own family. After a conflict with her parents, Zolin returned to Melbourne and subsequently spent time in the USA before returning to Australia and settling in Sydney. Zolin has studied linguistics, languages and literature at the University of New England, Armidale, and has worked as a nanny, a technical writer and a process analyst.
Zolin's first novel, Most Beloved, was short-listed for the The Australian / Vogel National Literary Award (for an Unpublished Manuscript) in 1992. Her first published novel is Tristessa and Lucido.
In 2005 Zolin launched the National Jazz Writing Competition and in 2008 she began editing extempore, a journal devoted to writing about, inspired by or responding to jazz. Zolin credits jazz and improvised music with reviving her writing energy during a period when it had faltered.
