Sally Morrison was born in Sydney and educated in Canberra, graduating from the Australian National University with a BSc (hons) in 1970. During the 1970s and 1980s she worked at the University of Melbourne as a bacterial geneticist, writing fiction and drama in her spare time. In 1976 her play,'Hag', was performed at the National Playwrights Conference.
Morrison's first novel Who's Taking You to the Dance (1979) was published by a small co-operative, but attracted wider attention through Patrick White's favourable response. She followed this with I Am a Boat (1989), a collection of short stories. With the assistance of grants from the Australia Council, Morrison began writing full-time in 1990. Her second novel, Mad Meg (1994), an exploration of art, sex and politics, was widely praised, winning the NBC Banjo Award in 1995. In 1998 Morrison published Against Gravity, a novel that draws on her scientific back ground. She has also contibuted an article on Professor Nancy Mills to 'On the Edge of Discovery': Australian Women in Science (Text, 1993).
Since 1998 Morrison has published a number of reviews and short stories while working on her fourth novel The Insatiable Desire of Injured Love (2002).