Born in the 1950s, Jenny Kroonstuiver spent her childhood living on pastoral stations firstly in western Queensland and then on the Nullarbor Plain in Western Australia. She trained as a teacher and spent several years teaching in country areas of the Northern Territory and Queensland, before returning to Kalgoorlie in the 1980s. After a short-lived marriage, she raised her four children alone, continuing to work in the broader education sector. From 2004, she took up a role managing the national training system for the Australian meat industry, a role she held until her retirement in 2020. After publishing several family histories and biographies, she turned to writing historical fiction set in ghost towns of Australia.