Her father, a Church of England minister, died when she was very young, leaving her mother with little to support them.

Shepherd was educated locally and then at Howell's School in Denbigh, Wales before graduating from the University College London with a BA in English in 1923 and then completing a DipEd.

[5] Her first play, Daybreak, was broadcast on ABC Radio in May 1938 before its stage premiere at the Theatre Royal, Hobart in July of the same year.

[6] In 1946 her radio serial Children of Magpie Gully was broadcast by 2FC, replacing Gwen Meredith's Anderson Place in the time-slot.

[7] Also in 1946 she dramatized Ernestine Hill's My Love Must Wait, about Matthew Flinders, for ABC radio.