[2][4] She was an English and drama teacher at Hamilton Girls' High School until 1987, when she began to suffer from Ménière's disease; she left teaching at this time and became a full-time writer.
[2] Her 1992 novel Tripswitch, about three cousins who discover they are witches, was selected in 2004 to be the first book published as part of the Collins Modern New Zealand Classics series, along with a foreword from Tessa Duder.
[6] She wrote a number of picture books for young children,[2] including The Life-size Inflatable Whale, illustrated by John Tarlton.
These novels feature the fictional detective Sergeant Rangi, described by the Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature as a "comic mixture" of Hercule Poirot, Don Juan and Billy T.
[2] Gordon received the Choysa Bursary for Children's Writers in 1990, the Buddle Findlay Sargeson Fellowship in 1992,[1] and a Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council Scholarship in Letters in 1994.