Alan Wearne was born and grew up in Melbourne. He became friendly with Laurie Duggan and John Scott at Monash University, where he studied history, which he describes as his only intellectual love. He hosted "Conversations with a Dead Poet" (1999) a television documentary about his friend, John Forbes. A supporter of Essendon, the Australian Rules football club, since 1954 he helped found the Nunawading District Junior Football League and has published a prose satire about Melbourne's Australian Rules culture. He now teaches creative writing at the University of Wollongong, living part of the year in Wollongong and part in Fremantle, Western Australia, and regards himself as an exile from Melbourne.