The daughter of a WW2 Australian Army commando and salesman, Janeen Webb was brought up in the Newcastle suburb of Charlestown and was educated at schools locally. She then studied at the University of Newcastle, New South Wales where she ultimately gained a Ph.D. (1983) in literature. For many years she taught at the Institute of Catholic Education (later part of the Australian Catholic University) in Melbourne, Victoria where she was Associate Professor and Reader in literature.
From 1987-1991, Webb was a member of the editorial collective of Australian Science Fiction Review: Second Series, and is currently on the advisory board of Science Fiction Studies. She is perhaps best known for her co-editorship, with her second husband, Jack Dann, of a major anthology of Australian science fiction and fantasy, Dreaming Down-Under (Sydney: HarperCollins, 1998; New York: Tor Books, 1999), which won its editors a World Fantasy Award for Best Anthology, as well as a 1999 Ditmar Award.
Her other publications include Aliens & Savages: Fiction, Politics and Prejudice in Australia (1998), The Fantastic Self (an edited collection of critical essays on fantasy and science fiction) (1999) and a scholarly edition of The Yellow Wave, Kenneth Mackay's important 1895 scientific romance (2003). These three books were written/edited with her colleague, Andrew Enstice.
Webb is currently working on a series of novels for Young Adults, The Sinbad Chronicles. The first two books are Sailing to Atlantis (2001) and The Silken Road to Samarkand (2003).
In 1995 she married Jack Dann an American science fiction author with whom she resides near Foster in rural Victoria.
"Death at the Blue Elephant" (1996) in Enter: HQ/Flamingo Short Story Collection
"Niagara Falling" (1997, with Jack Dann) in Black Mist and Other Japanese Futures (ed. Orson Scott Card, Keith Ferrell)
"Incident on Wolfe Street" (1998) in HQ Magazine Jan/Feb 2000
"Ali Baba and the Forty Aliens" (2000) in A Wolf at the Door and Other Retold Fairy Tales (ed. Ellen Datlow, Terri Windling)
"The Fire-eater's Tale" (2000, with Jack Dann) in Strange Attraction (ed. Edward E. Kramer)
"Gawain and the Selkie's Daughter" (2002) in The Road to Camelot (ed. Sophie Masson)
"Tigershow" (2003) in Agog! Terrific Tales (ed. Cat Sparks)
"Blake's Angel" (2003) in Gathering the Bones (ed. Ramsey Campbell, Jack Dann, Dennis Etchison)
"Red City" (2004) in Year's Best SF 10 (ed. David G. Hartwell, Kathryn Cramer)
"The Lion Hunt" (2004) in Conqueror Fantastic (ed. Pamela Sargent)
"A Faust Films Production" (2004) in Little Red Riding Hood in the Big Bad City, (ed. Martin H. Greenberg, John Helfers)
Essays
The Vampire of Shalott (1993) in The New York Review of Science Fiction December 1993 (ed. Kathryn Cramer, L. W. Currey, Samuel R. Delany, David G. Hartwell, Donald G. Keller, Robert K. J. Killheffer, Gordon Van Gelder)
Post-Romantic Romance: Guy Gavriel Kay's "Tigana" and "A Song for Arbonne" (1995) in The New York Review of Science Fiction January 1995, (ed. Kathryn Cramer, L. W. Currey, Samuel R. Delany, Gordon Van Gelder, David G. Hartwell, Donald G. Keller, Robert K. J. Killheffer)
Introduction (1998, with Jack Dann) in Dreaming Down-Under
Foreword (2004, with Dena Bain Taylor) in The Summer Tree, (ed. Guy Gavriel Kay)
