Formerly a primary school teacher, Kerry Kenihan has been a journalist for over thirty years. She was at one time women's editor of the Melbourne Sunday Observer and chief sub-editor of New Idea. In the 1970s Kenihan was a prolific writer of short stories, many of them romances, which she published under various pseudonyms. Since then she has worked freelance, writing both general news and features on topics including medicine, food and wine, and women's issues. She was married to Geoff Kenihan, also a journalist.
Her second son, Quentin, was born in 1975 with severe osteogenesis imperfecta (OI), which meant that his bones were as brittle as eggshell. With her husband Kenihan founded the Osteogenesis Imperfecta Foundation to assist families afflicted with this condition. Their experiences in caring for Quentin and helping him to overcome the difficulties resulting from his OI led her to write the book How to be the Parents of a Handicapped Child - and Survive (1981), and in 1985 when Quentin was ten she wrote his story.
Kenihan was awarded South Australian Department of the Arts grants in 1987, 1989. In 1989 she edited and part-wrote Nursing - 150 Years of Caring in South Australia. She has been for some time a specialist travel writer, winning awards for her writing. Kenihan is lead travel writer for Kendall Airlines' inflight magazine and for the South Australian travel newspaper Sightseeing South Australia, and is travel broadcaster for Adelaide radio station 5EBI. She has written a number of travel guide books for TP Books, Viking Penguin, Berlitz, Universal Press and Lonely Planet, and was co-writer of Sounds Like Greek Cuisine To Me (1998). Kenihan is an instructor for Stott's Off-Campus College in Melbourne, teaching adult education courses on creative writing and journalism.
