[3] She has also worked as a literary reviewer for newspapers such as The Observer, The Sydney Morning Herald, a teacher, and academic.
[4] The River Ophelia caught the public's attention due to its striking cover of a nude woman in black and white photography and the marketing of the book was widely discussed in literary circles.
[10] The novel has also attracted significant scholarly attention with the novel now recognised as a significant "grunge" text (although that term and that genre are contested) and a notable example of a feminist text featuring erotic (some would say 'pornographic') content and this has been widely debated in literary circles with particular reference to the concept of abject bodies and abjection.
[15] In October 2017, Ettler re-released The River Ophelia in e-book format with an Author's Note and an Introduction analyzing the original reception of the novel.
Her mother and father operated a restaurant on Bondi Road, which they sold to the parents of Julia Zemiro in 1971.