She has published and edited numerous books and is notable for synthesising European and New Zealand influences in her work.
[1] Ensing earned a master's degree in 1967, and was appointed to a position in Literature in the English Department at the University of Auckland.
There she taught until 1999 when she took early retirement and was later appointed an Honorary Research Fellow (Faculty of Arts).
[4] She established her reputation with three books published in 1995: Dear Mr Sargeson was written in homage after visiting the cottage of the writer Frank Sargeson in Takapuna; Like I have seen the dark green ladder climbing was written about the paintings of Eion Stevens; in Gloria-in-Excelsis, Ensing edited the poems of Gloria Rawlinson.
[5] Ensing has an interest in art, publishing catalogues of exhibitions by Stanley Palmer in 1992 and Len Castle in 2008.