Margaret Barbalet lived her first ten years in rural Tasmania. She graduated from the University of Adelaide in 1973 with an MA in History. She has lived in Adelaide, Pt Moresby, Bathurst, Cambridge, Canberra and Kuala Lumpur, and has worked as a shop assistant, in a rural CAE as a lecturer in history, as a research officer in Adelaide, and intermittently in the public service. She joined the Dept of Foreign Affairs and Trade in 1990 and in 1996 was Second Secretary (Pol. and Ec.) to the Australian High Commission, Kuala Lumpur.
Margaret has had short stories and poetry published, and two histories, including Far From a Low Gutter Girl. She was awarded Literature Board Grants 1983-4 and 1990.