Career
A native of Ballybrit, Galway, Higgins was one of thirteen children in a working-class household. While confined, she began reading, and soon took to composing poems. She joined the Galway Writers" Workshop in 1982.
Jessie Lendennie, editor of Salmon Publishing, encouraged Higgins, and oversaw the publication of her first five collections.
Higgins was Galway County"s Writer-in-Residence in 1987, Writer in Residence at the National University of Ireland, Galway, in 1994-1995, Writer in Residence for Offaly County Council in 1998-1999. She was Green Honors Professor at Texas Christian University, in October 2000.
She was made an honorary fellow at Hong Kong Baptist University November 2006. She cites the feminist, Mary Wollstonecraft, and the Irish Republican, Mary MacSwiney, as role models.
She lives in Galway and An Spidéal.