The eldest of seven children, Glaskin, a fifth generation West Australian, went to school in Perth before joining the Royal Australian Navy as a seaman in 1941. He served in the Pacific until he was injured in the Battle of the Coral Sea, and subsequently discharged. After doing some clerical work, he joined the RAAF in 1944 and was trained and commissioned in Canada as a navigator. Discharged again, he resumed clerical work until 1949, before writing his novel A World of Our Own which was published in London in 1955.
Glaskin took up a position in a stockbroking firm in Singapore from July 1949 until 1958, writing in his spare time. In 1959 he commenced writing full time and moved to Amsterdam where he lived from 1961 to 1967, before returning finally to Perth.
Gerald Glaskin was a pioneer of gay writing in Australia, scandalizing his home town of Perth with his lurid novels, which sold in their tens-of-thousands worldwide. He also wrote travel books, a memoir, works on reincarnation and parapsychology, screenplays based on his own novels and numerous short stories. His children's novel, A Waltz Through the Hills, was adapted for television. His writing has been published internationally and translated into several languages.
Glaskin also wrote Windows of the mind: Discovering your past and future lives through massage and mental exercise , a new-age spiritual guide related to the interpretation of dreams.
