Margaret Coombs was born of Jewish, Prussian, German and English descent on her father's side and has written of the importance for her writing of her 'problematical Jewish background'. Her father was a country doctor, and she spent her early years in Mudgee, a town later fictionalised as Narramundi in Regards to the Czar.
When the family moved to Sydney she attended Kambala Church of England Girls' School, and later Sydney University, where she was awarded a Master of Arts degree in Government. She married Jim Coombs and travelled to England with him when he was posted there by the Atomic Energy Commission, returning in 1972. They divorced in 1976.
Together with Paul Hamilton she attempted in the 1980s to raise the profile of clowning in circus performance. Although they were disappointed in this hope, she assisted Paul establish his career as the successful mime-clown 'Fungo Chutney'.
Coombs was a founding member of the Women's Redress Press and was a member of the Australian Society of Authors and of the NSW Poets Union. Her work has been read on the Writer's Radio program on Radio 5UV, on various programs on Radio 2SER FM, and on The Book Show on SBS TV. She read at Harold Park, Sydney, from 1987 to 1990, at FELT, Sydney University; at the Feminist Book Fortnight, 1989; at the Festival of Sydney, 1989; for a Poets Union reading at the Trades Hall and at the National Gallery of Victoria, 1990.
In 2001 she was diagnosed with cancer, and eventually died after three years of radiotherapy, chemotherapy and frustration at being virtually bedridden.
