 She attended high school in Phoenix, Arizona, and obtained her Bachelor of Arts degree at Whittier College in Whittier, California, in 1967.She attended the University of Arizona, receiving an Master of Arts degree in 1967 and a Ph.D. in 1974.In 1967 she accepted a teaching appointment at the University of Nebraska Omaha in 1976, and in 1971 moved to the University of Nebraska–Lincoln (UNL), where she taught courses in English literature, women's studies in literature, women writers of the West, literature of the Plains, and courses on Nebraska authors such as Mari Sandoz and Willa Cather.