Professor Gervase Phinn taught in a range of schools for fourteen years before becoming an education adviser and school inspector. He is now a freelance lecturer, broadcaster and writer, a consultant for the Open University, Honorary Fellow of St. John's College, York, Doctor of Letters (D.Litt) of the University of Leicester, Doctor of Letters (D.Litt) of The University of Hull and the Fellow and Visiting Professor of Education at The University of Teesside. In 2005 the highest academic award of Sheffield Hallam University, Doctor of the University (D.Univ.) was conferred upon him by the Chancellor, Professor Lord Robert Winston. In 2006 he became President of The School Library Association.

He has published many articles, chapters and books and edited a wide range of poetry and short story collections. Gervase Phinn is probably best known for his best-selling autobiographical novels: The Other Side of the Dale, Over Hill and Dale and Head Over Heels in the Dales, published by Michael Joseph, which he read on the Radio 4 programme 'Book of the Week.'