[1] After being diagnosed with breast cancer in 1999, Duncan had a mastectomy and chemotherapy.

Duncan lived in New South Wales with her second husband, Bob.

They had homes at Pittwater and the mid-north coast of New South Wales.

The Pittwater home, on Lovett Bay, is called Tarrangaua and was built for poet Dorothea Mackellar in 1925.

[1] Duncan died on 30 November 2024, shortly before publication of her latest novel, Finding Joy in Oyster Bay.