The daughter of Australian missionaries, Mary Macdonald was born in India and returned to Australia in the 1920s. Her work, published in Australia, England, India, Indonesia and the USA, includes poetry, nonsense verses, legends for children, science-fiction, short stories, family history, anthems and church texts. She wrote stories and plays for children published in the School Paper (Melbourne, Victoria) in the 1960s.
Macdonald worked in a variety of jobs before marriage to a mathematician. She taught mathematics from1969-1979. After retirement Macdonald lived in Brighton, Victoria, and continued writing, joining the Wordsmiths poetry group in Melbourne in 1987. Mary Macdonald is the daughter of Stella M. Churchward Kelly (q.v.).