Gina Mercer grew up on the north coast of NSW. Educated at Ballina High School and the University of Sydney, she holds a BA (Hons), PhD and Grad. Dip. in Tertiary Education. Over the past 16 years she has taught a wide range of literature at both the University of Sydney and the James Cook University (where from 1991-2003 she was a Senior Lecturer in creative writing, Australian literature and literary theory at the School of Humanities).

In 2003 she migrated south, from Townsville to Hobart. She has taught creative writing in the community for many years. She has enjoyed frequent publication of her creative and academic work, both in journals and books, throughout her career. She is the author of a critical analysis of NZ writer, Janet Frame: Subversive Fictions (1994), a collection of poems, The Ocean in the Kitchen (1999), a novel, Parachute Silk (2001). She co-edited a collection of essays, Postgraduate Research Supervision: Transforming (R)Elations (2001). In 1997 she was the winner of the Northern Territory's Red Earth Poetry (Open) Competition. In 1998 she was the recipient of the Qld Arts Council/Everald Compton New Regional Writer's Fellowship.