Glenda Adams was born and educated in Sydney. She studied Indonesian and other languages at the University of Sydney and spent some time in Indonesia on a small scholarship before returning to Sydney to teach. In 1964 she moved to New York to study journalism at Columbia University. After a failed marriage she taught fiction-writing workshops at Sarah Lawrence College and Columbia University before deciding to return to Australia. She returned to Sydney in 1990 and continued her teaching career at the University of Technology, Sydney.
Adams had published a number of short stories in the Bulletin, the Village Voice, Harper's and the Transatlantic Review before her first collection Lies and Stories was published in 1976. She published her first novel Games of the Strong in 1982 and won the Miles Franklin Award and the NSW State Premier's Award in 1987 for Dancing on Coral. Adams' stories often explore family and school life in Australia and her longer works are seen to respond to other writers such as Christina Stead or literary forms such as the traditional male bildungsroman. In 1998 Adams' first play Monkey Trap, a well-received exploration of storytelling, was performed in Sydney.