Miriel Lenore spent her early life in Victoria and was educated in Bendigo and Melbourne. After completing a BSc at Melbourne University she worked as a plant breeder in the Victorian Department of Agriculture before becoming Travelling Secretary for the Australian Student Christian Movement in 1954-1955. She often visited Adelaide in the context of this work. Lenore married in 1955, had three children, and amicably divorced in 1984. She lived for 22 years in Fiji, working in formal and non-formal education, and gaining a Graduate Diploma of Education (Massey, New Zealand) by correspondence. With others she was involved in establishing the YWCA and the Student Christian Movement in Fiji.
Lenore returned to Australia, and after two years in Sydney, came to live in Adelaide in 1981. While studying for a Graduate Diploma in Women's Studies (SACAE) she began writing poetry and joined the Country and City Women Writers. Lenore is a frequent traveller and spends several months each year in an Aboriginal community in Central Australia. (This community is featured in Lenore's Sun Wind and Diesel.) She describes herself as a 'post-Christian feminist, interested in prehistoric images of women'; and is a student of rock art.
With Mary Moore she wrote the text of Masterkey, Moore's multi-media production for the 1998 Perth and Adelaide Festivals. She also edited Doris Kartinyari's Kick the Tin for Spinifex Press in 2000.
