A writer and a teacher of writing, Tess Brady is the daughter of Frank Brady and his wife Laurel (née Nelson), growing up in Barker Rd, Prospect, South Australia. As a child she regularly gave flowers to the old women in the nursing home across the road, one of whom was Daisy Bates (q.v.). Brady comes from a family of writers. Her brother Michael Brady is a short story writer, and her sister Bernadette Brady writes books on astrology.
Brady completed a BA Hons (Adelaide), M Ed (Exeter) and PhD (Deakin University), and was the first in Australia to get a PhD in Creative Writing and Exegesis. She lectured at the University of South Australia over a period of twelve years to 1995, teaching, at different times, language, curriculum and creative writing. Following that she took up a position at Griffith University teaching Creative Writing, and she has also taught at Deakin University. She has written reviews for the Australian Book Review and has been co-editor of the international scholarly journal TEXT.
Brady has served on the board of the Contemporary Arts Society and as chair of the South Australian Writers' Centre, and was a member of the Experimental Art Foundation. She is the author of the booklet Tracing a Line: Portraits of Unley Women (1984), and co-edited (with Lyn Ingoldsby) The Bunyip Book (1980). Her publications also include the Girls Guide to... a series of 'how-to' books for women. As a young writer Brady received grants for writing films. She received a Literary Board Grant in 1982 for After the Rage, grants from the South Australian Department of the Arts in 1983, 1984 and 1993, a grant from the United Trades and Labor Council, and an Australia Council Grant in 1984 for radio drama. In 1999 she was on the Management Committee of the Brisbane Writers' Festival.
