Joyce Margaret Boyd Lambert was born in Sale, grew up in Melbourne and then worked as an Arts and Craft teacher at secondary school level. From 1950-1957 Lambert was married to Eric Lambert (author of The Twenty Thousand Thieves), an experience she described as 'an interesting disaster'.
Lambert worked as a volunteer on the barque Polly Woodside for seven years and also served as editor of The Dog Watch, the journal of the Shiplovers' Society of Victoria.
(Source: Coming Ready or Not : A Novel of Youth and Age and the Bridging, 1984)