[4][5] The daughter of John William Hulme, a carpenter, and Mary Ann Miller, a credit manager, she was the eldest of six children.

[6][7][8] Her father was a first-generation New Zealander whose parents were from Lancashire, England, and her mother came from Oamaru, of Orkney Scots and Māori descent (Kāi Tahu and Kāti Māmoe).

She began studying for an honours law degree at the University of Canterbury in 1967, but left after four terms—feeling "estranged/out-of-place"[6]—and returned to tobacco picking, although she continued to write.

[7] By 1972, Hulme had accumulated a large quantity of notes and drawings and decided to begin writing full-time, but, despite financial support from her family, she returned to work nine months later.

She worked in a range of jobs, including in retail, as a fish-and-chips cook, a winder at a woollen mill, and as a mail deliverer in Greymouth, on the West Coast of the South Island.

[15] In 1985, Hulme was writer-in-residence at the University of Canterbury and in 1990 she was awarded the 1990 Scholarship in Letters from the Queen Elizabeth Arts Council Literature Committee for two years.

She vocally opposed plans to develop the settlement with additional housing or tourist facilities and believed it deserved special government protection.

[20] In late 2011, Hulme announced that she was leaving the area as local body rates (property taxes) meant she could no longer afford to live there.

[36][37] In 1995, Christine Parker wrote and directed, and Caterina de Nave produced, an adaptation of Hulme's 1991 short story "Hinekaro Goes On a Picnic and Blows Up Another Obelisk".