Gloria was born in Cape Town, South Africa, working there as a teacher and public librarian until age 26. She came to the United States and settled in Kansas, and lives in Lawrence, Kansas with her family and works as an academic librarian.

Writing poetry has provided her with the unique opportunity to share her experiences both in Cape Town and in Kansas . Although her experiences may be seen as somewhat ordinary and mundane, her obsession with trains certainly would strike you as rather odd; and she hopes, interesting. Something that you might not be aware of, is that all the poems that are written about train stations, are specific to stations that she traveled to on a regular basis on Cape Town's Suburban-line, in her youth.