Following his award of the DCA degree at the University of Technology, Sydney, Harper sought further experience and, attracted by the work of Sir Malcolm Bradbury, headed to the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom, where he studied and taught in the creative and critical writing program, under the tutelage of Professor Jon Cook and connecting to Bradbury, as he had planned.
During his time at Portsmouth he began publishing with the emerging Parlor Press in the United States, whose focus on both creative and critical writing was of interest to him.
He returned to the University of Wales in 2007, having been invited to establish an initiative focusing on the development of creative and critical practices.
Completing his novel, Moon Dance, in 2010-2011, he was awarded fellowships to continue his writing, research and teaching, first at the University of Montevallo in Montevallo, Alabama, as a Distinguished Professor in the honors program, and later at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston (2010-2011) as a visiting Research Professor, where his focus was on creativity and environmental design in medical environments.
In 2018 he initiated (and currently advises) a university-wide student program to raise future leader dogs for the blind and sight-impaired.
His novel, Releasing the Animals, while not about Leader Dogs, is an exploration of freedom and empowerment, set in the vicinity of a fictional zoo.