AustLit

Gina Ballantyne was born in Adelaide, but her family moved back to Sydney in 1922, and she spent most of her childhood in the Manly area. She was educated at Balgowlah Grammar School. In the 1940s she lived at Bondi and Waverley, moving to the Blue Mountains with her husband in the early 1950s and giving birth to her first daughter, Lyndall Birrahlee Stevens (the name 'Birrahlee' was suggested by Rex Ingamells). On her husband's death she returned to Sydney, later remarrying and returning to the mountains, where her second daughter was born. They moved back to Sydney for one year in 1971 and then in 1972 to the Central Coast where she died of breast cancer the following year.

She published several volumes of verse identifying with nationalistic Jindyworobak sentiments, and wrote 'Jindyworobak as I see it' for the Jindyworobak Review 1938-1948 (Melbourne: Jindyworobak, 1948). At the age of 26 she edited the 1945 Jindyworobak Anthology; the first woman editor of the series. Although not known for her art, she also did some beautiful sketches and watercolours.