In the early 1960s Clarissa Stein moved to Rosenheim, Germany where she finished her secondary schooling. She studied at the Bayrische Beamten Fachhochschule in Herrsching/Ammersee. In 1975, she finished her tertiary education with the Dip. Finanzwirt (equivalent to a Bachelor of Administraion) and worked as a taxation officer for the Bavarian Government. In Australia she has lived in Melbourne and studied as an external student at Deakin University. Stein has promoted multicultural writing.
Stein has held membership of the Fellowship of Australian Writers (FAW) (Victorian Branch) the Society of Women Writers Australia, the Waverley Writing Group, the Croydon-Wareena Writing Group, the Australian Society of Authors, the Australian Society of Editors, The New Zealand Poetry Society, the National Book Council, PEN, the Deutsche Haiku Gesellschaft, the Interessengemeinschaft deutscher Schriftsteller, the International Society of Poets (US), the Australian Society of Multicultural Writers, the Deakin Literary Society and the AEToZED Women Writers. She has read her work on numerous occasions including: at Rosenheim's 'Projektgruppe Widerstrasse' literary function in 1982, DLS Readings, Geelong, at the Melbourne Poetry Society for Moomba in 1989, at Wyreena, Croydon in 1990 and at the Ross-House Festival, Flinders Lane, Melbourne, in 1990.
