Mini Goss was born in Melbourne. Her mum was a model and her dad an architect and like lots of young people at the time her parents soon got on a ship and sailed away to find excitement in London. Mini lived in London and New York for most of her childhood. Despite going to groovy parties and meeting the odd pop-star, Mini, an only child, longed for a 'normal' life back in Melbourne with grandparents, cousins to play with and a dog. When Mini was a teenager she returned to Melbourne, got a dog, a cat, a rabbit and some birds. She was only allowed to watch one hour of TV a day so the rest of the time she spent drawing. Her favourite thing to draw was her dog. As a grown-up, Mini still likes to draw her dog, her cat, rabbits, birds, fish and her three children. Since starting to write and illustrate children's books over twenty years ago, her pets and children have been the models for many characters in her books. Mini was awarded the Crichton Award for illustration in 2002. More recently Mini has turned her pets into knitted characters. The Barry and Stella series features her own dog Barry and his real-life aunt Stella as knitted toys. In 2012 Mini took her love of knitting to extremes and covered a life-sized baby elephant in a knitted skin to help the Melbourne zoo celebrate its 150th anniversary.
