Nellie Hill grew up in the Midwest and spent many childhood summers on a lake in southern New England. When she graduated from New York University, she remained in New York to work in various aspects of publishing. After her marriage, she moved to San Francisco and soon discovered hiking in the California Sierras and the high Cascade ranges of Washington State. Nellie has published short fiction and poems in a variety of literary journals, such as American Poetry Review, The Harvard Magazine, and The New England Review, and is the author of five chapbooks. As she continued to write and publish her work, she studied massage and acupressure and soon became a massage therapist.