Jan Hutchinson holds a Bachelor of Arts and a Diploma of Education from the University of Sydney, and a Diploma of Commerce at the University of Technology in Sydney. She began writing fiction in 1985 and during 1990 she was the writer in residence at the Literature Board of the Australia Council's Writer's Studio in Venice. She has been influential in many aspects of the teaching of creative writing. While on the staff of Macquarie University in 1996 she established, with Graham Williams, the conference which launched Association of University Writing Programmes. As a lecturer in the Department of Writing, Journalism and Social Inquiry at the University of Technology, Sydney, she assisted in setting up the DeCaux Street Words programme, displaying excerpts from the works of Australian poets on bus stops, phone booths and other sites around inner Sydney.
Her work has been widely published in magazines and literary journals, and her short story, 'The Tai-Chi Man' was read on ABC Radio in 2000. She has also been recorded for ABC's Radio's Food Program.
