Mary Ann Hughes was born into a family of Showies. As a child, she spent time in Melbourne, then in WA on the Nullabor Plains, and after that in Coolgardie at a boarding school in WA. She completed high school in NSW and after travelling with the shows, became an encyclopaedia saleswoman, an aluminium cladding saleswoman, and then a secretary to an accountant. She completed a degree at the University of Newcastle, majoring in English Literature, before accompanying her second husband to Cambridge in the UK. When she returned, she completed a Ph.D. on ethnic literature before working as a tutor and a teacher.