Marya Glyn-Daniel's father was a station master with Victorian Railways and as a consequence her family moved frequently and she received her education in various state schools and convents across country Victoria.
Glyn-Daniel started writing in her forties, beginning the first draft of her novel Hong Kong Lover in 1996. In the late 1990s she wrote two plays, Gulf Country and The Balls Up, and has written a biography of Coralie Wood, as well as a memoir set in Macau in the 1960s. Hong Kong Lover was published in 2007.