Alex Barlow graduated from the University of Queensland with majors in anthropology and sociology. He has been a primary and secondary school teacher and has written many educational books for children about Aboriginal art, culture and society with Marji Hill, including: You and Me Living Together: The Story of Aboriginal Land Rights (2001), Bosses Ourselves: The Story of Aboriginal Self-Government (2001), Sharing Our Cultures: The Story of Aboriginal Cultures (2001), and The Macmillan Encyclopedia of Australia's Aboriginal Peoples (2000).
Barlow has also published many re-tellings of Indigenous stories and biographies of Aboriginal Australians as readers for children, and has written adult works about Aboriginal education.
