Nessa Flax was educated at Riverside City College, SUNY at Stony Brook and Dartmouth College, a member of the first graduating class of women in 1976. Her career includes selling motorcycles, teaching for 16 years, coaching fencing, management consulting and writing. She is now a columnist for the Journal Opinion, a local newspaper. Raised in suburban Virginia, Pennsylvania and California, the mountains and meadows of the North Country have now claimed her for their own.