Emma Ashmere lives in northern New South Wales and holds a PhD in English from La Trobe University investigating whiteness and the use of Australian history in fiction, and an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Adelaide.

Some of her short stories have appeared in The Age, University of Canberra's Monitor, Australian Women's Book Review, Imago and Kurungabaa.

She has worked in arts and university administration, tutored in life writing and helped research several recent books on Australian gardening history, and women and empire.