After completing her high school studies in Athens, Vasso Kalamaras studied painting during 1949 at The School of Fine Arts of the National Metsovion Polytechnic school. She published in Greek before arriving in Australia and continued to publish the Greek literature of Australia overseas during the 1950s in the London periodical Krikos for example. As well as grants to assist her in writing and translating, Kalamaras has received grants to assist in the staging of several of her plays. Settling in Australia, Kalamaras lived on a tobacco farm in Manjimup, Western Australia for many years, before establishing herself in Perth.
Kalamaras studied drama at the National Theatre in Athens during 1960 and 1961, she gained a Graduate Diploma in Education from Curtin University of Technology, a Diploma of Fine Arts from Claremont Technical College, Perth, and an Associateship in Fine Arts from the Western Australia Institute of Technology. For 20 years she was a lecturer in Modern Greek at Perth College of Technical and Further Education (TAFE).
Kalamaras won the Tsakalos Literature Prize for prose (Athens) in 1978 for her travel journal Impressions of a Journey. She has also won a number of prizes in literary competitions organised by Greek community associations in Australia, notably the Hellenism Award in 1992. Kalamaras has been a member of the National Institute of Greek Writers in Athens, the Australian Society of Authors, The Fellowship of Australian Writers (FAW), the Poets' Union, The Society of Women Writers (Australia), other writers' associations and a founding member - together with Dame Mary Durack - of International PEN in Perth. She has participated in numerous literary conferences, both in Australia and in Greece.
Kalamaras has had her own programme, 'The Hellenism', with the Hellenic Radio Service, a Greek and English show informing listeners about Greek writers, their works and attributes. Her work is represented in the World Anthology of Short Stories and The World Anthology of Poetry, both published in Athens and many anthologies published in Australia and overseas.
