Bev Roberts worked in a bookshop in Adelaide before moving to Melbourne. After studying history at the University of Melbourne as an adult student, she went on to teach history and languages at the same university. She went to London for five years, then served terms as the poetry editor of Meanjin and editor of Fine Line, before being appointed Victoria's first Literature Field Officer and founding coordinator of the Victorian Writers' Centre. Actively involved in community writing, Roberts has taught it at TAFE, and worked as Writer-in-Community on rural and urban projects. These works are as diverse as The Bollards of Barwon Heads (1993), written in conjunction with the children of the Barwon Heads Primary School, and the local history A Special Place : A Breamlea Album (1995). Roberts has written reports, spoken at conferences and to the media on community writing. She has also edited Floreo, the biannual magazine of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne.
Involved for many years in promoting literature, she coordinated the first National Poetry Festival in Melbourne in 1997, and has been a member of literary award judging panels and advisory committees.
