Helen Collins was born in New London, Connecticut, lived there and in Middletown, and attended the University of Connecticut where she majored in English. As an undergraduate, she spent a year in Herrsching am Amersee near Munich studying language, drawing and sculpting. Returning to the United States, she earned a M.A. in English at UConn, specializing in 18th and 19th century English Literature. Next, she took advanced courses at the University of Rhode Island, lived in Manhattan and taught English at Brooklyn College. She has been a Professor in the English Department at Nassau Community College, where her teaching included Women Writers and Science Fiction. Her first novel, Mutagenesis, was published by Tor Press and her second, Egret by Haworth Press.