Rhyll McMaster's poetry was published in The Bulletin while she was still a schoolgirl. Her work has won acclaim and awards including the C.J. Dennis Prize (Victorian Premier's Awards), and she has twice won the Grace Leven Prize. Her poems have been broadcast on national radio and television. She adapted poems from On My Empty Feet as a radio play for the ABC, broadcast twice due to popular demand. She has staged her poetry in a performance piece with a singer and a four-piece rock band. Her poetry and prose are interconnected, with many phrases from her poems re-appearing as prose in her award-winning first novel, Feather Man.