Elizabeth O'Conner was the daughter of novelist Eric Lowe (q.v.), who had a sheep station at Dunedoo, and she lived as a child at Katoomba in the Blue Mountains. Her mother was also a writer. O'Conner's connection with South Australia is that she studied art in Adelaide as well as Sydney. In the late 1930s she joined the staff of a girls' boarding school in Brisbane. Eleanor Dark (q.v.) was a friend who encouraged her writing.

O'Conner met her husband while visiting a North Queensland cattle station, was married in 1942 and moved to the Gulf country. For fifteen years her husband managed Forest Home on the Gilbert River and later managed a property nearer the Atherton Tablelands. Her books Steak for Breakfast and A Second Helping tell of their life in the outback. They had four children.