[1] Brinsmead's parents, Edward Kenelm Guy Hungerford and May Lambert, were missionaries for the Seventh-day Adventist Church who left Sydney for Java (Indonesia) 1909 to 1912.
Finding time to write or study was a struggle for Brinsmead as she was always kept busy with clerical tasks and arranging employees' food and accommodation needs.
She managed to escape in various ways to find a place to write undisturbed; to a caravan in the back yard or to coffee shops.
She lived for varying lengths of time in North Queensland, Melbourne, Tasmania, the West Australian outback, and in northern New South Wales.
Her novels, taken from her experiences and travels around Australia, were written for children and young adults; however, they expressed many themes that have gained more prominence in today's world – such as the fragility and beauty of the environment and indigenous areas and the need for their conservation, the effect of ecological damage, the plight of refugees and societies disaffected and the human cost of resource development.
Many of her over twenty books reached an international readership and were translated into Japanese, Italian, Czech, and German as well as being published in British, American and Australian editions.