[2] A contemporary of writers Kathy Lette and Gabrielle Carey, she attended Gymea High School and then, via a teacher's scholarship, she completed a BA (Honours) and MA (Honours) in English literature at the University of Sydney.
While studying, Debra Adelaide worked as a university tutor and research assistant, and afterwards became a freelance editor, author and book reviewer.
She commenced writing fiction in the early 1990s and her first novel, The Hotel Albatross, was published in 1995.
She has published two collections of short fiction, entitled Zebra: and other stories (Picador: 2019) and Letter to George Clooney (Picador: 2013) and also contributed to and edited the anthology Acts of Dogs (Vintage: 2003) in which leading Australian and NZ authors have written stories and memoirs on the theme of dogs, and the Motherlove series of anthologies (Random House: 1996; 1997; 1998).
[4] Zebra won the 2019 University of Southern Queensland Steele Rudd Award for a Short Story Collection.