Largely raised in Sydney, Justine Larbalestier is the daughter of anthropologists, whose work saw them based at times in Newcastle, Canberra, and small Indigenous settlements in the Northern Territory.
Larbalestier worked as a research fellow in the English Department, University of Sydney, before becoming a full-time writer.
In addition to the works listed on AustLit, she has published The Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction (2002), a history of women and feminism in American science fiction, and Daughters of Earth : Feminist Science Fiction in the Twentieth Century (2006), an anthology of stories by American and British science fiction writers. For the latter book, Larbalestier won the 2007 William Atheling Jr Award for Criticism or Review. She is also the author of essays on American science-fiction culture in the 1940s and 1950s, and a wide range of critical work on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Larbalestier's work has won a wide range of awards (including a Nebula Award, an Aurealis Award, a Davitt Award, and a West Australin Premier's Book award) and has been shortlisted for many more.
Since the early 2000s, she has been based in Sydney and New York. As of 2018, she is increasingly based in New York with occasional returns to Sydney.