Jill Blee was educated at Sacred Heart College, Ballarat. She completed a Diploma in Applied Chemistry at the Ballarat School of Mines, after which she was employed as a research scientist in the synthetic fibre industry.
She moved to Sydney following her marriage where, in addition to working in a variety of jobs and bearing three children, she completed a Bachelor of Arts at Macquarie University in 1990 and a Master of Arts in Writing from the University of Western Sydney (1995), for which she wrote the historical novel Jamieson, later published as The Pines Hold Their Secrets. In 1996 she completed a Master of Arts in History at Macquarie University, focusing her research on historical fiction for children.
Blee's interest in Australian history and her own Irish heritage informs her fiction. Her PhD, completed in 2002 at the University of Ballarat, studied the relationship between the Irish Catholic community in Ballarat and their church following the 1872 Education Act and resulted in her novel, The Liberator's Birthday. Her semi-biographical novel, Brigid, blends her search for her roots with an account of the Great Potato Famine.
Blee has also written commissioned histories of Catholic education in Ballarat and Sale, as well as several short histories for the Little Red Book series. She has a long association with the Ballarat Writing Council, which she chaired from 2001 to 2006. She convened the Ballarat Writing Festival from 2002 to 2006, was a board member of the Victorian Writers' Centre in 2006, and is closely associated with the Ballarat Mechanics' Institute Library, including editing and contributing to a commemorative history marking the Institute's 150th anniversary. Blee has also taught and co-ordinated history and writing courses for the University of Ballarat, the Gordon TAFE in Geelong, and the Council of Adult Education in Melbourne. She is active in a number of literary activities in Ballarat and is a close friend of the writer Paddy O'Reilly.
Blee has a strong interest in writing children's historical fiction, particularly the history of convicts in Australia.
