At the age of eleven she won a writing competition, sending in a story to the magazine Little Folks.
After she had finished school, Esther Glen went to Australia in order to help her sister Helen run a kindergarten.
The story is about three bachelors who are not used to children, running a sheep station in Canterbury.
[3] Critics praised Glen's light-hearted style and the realistic characters.
Since 1922 Esther Glen edited the children's page in the paper Christchurch Sun, first as a freelance writer.
[4] She founded clubs where children could meet and make friends, so as to overcome their isolation in the New Zealand countryside.