Peter Goldman was the eldest of four children born to Patrick and Shirley Goldman, a family bearing Irish, Scottish, Welsh, German and Jewish ancestry. Goldman's schooling was undertaken in Cessnock, Maitland and Mittagong and was followed by a B.A. at the University of Newcastle. Goldman spent several periods overseas in the late 1960s and the 1970s, travelling largely through Europe and Asia. His travel was interspersed with employment in the fields of teaching, truckdriving, labouring and factory work.
Goldman has won several prizes for his poetry, including the inaurural Ann Danckwert Memorial Poetry Prize for 'Cessnock', in 1979, and in 1981, the Hunter Manning Magazine's poetry prize for the sequence 'Six Hunter Valley Poems'. He has judged poetry and edited anthologies.
