"I?m lucky to have become a poet," Nelson comments. Why lucky? She doesn't recall hearing or reading, much less writing poetry as a child. 

The lyrics she did learn in her early years came from songs and hymns, which she admits were probably sentimental. But sentimentality is one quality she works to avoid in her poetry, calling it "a real killer of truth." Nelson aims for brevity because she believes "it forces a kind of interior ruthlessness." If this skillful author does not always tell us what we want to hear, we know that we can count on her for the hard truths about humanity and our world.

As a Sister of St. Joseph (St. Paul Province), from age 18 to 27, Nelson began developing her writing voice during college. When asked about her religious mentors, Nelson offers only praise: "The Sisters of St. Joseph made real efforts to detect, and then develop, talents and skills in its members. I discovered a certain facility for words there."

After her nine-year sojourn with the St. Joseph Sisters, Nelson worked as a teacher and in related educational jobs for the next ten years. When she left teaching, it was to become an editor, a job she found compatible with writing during the morning hours. During that time, Nelson also returned to her alma mater, the College of St. Catherine, for an advanced writing class. Shortly thereafter, she won the New Rivers prize for emerging poets. She continued writing poetry, and took additional writing classes at the Loft, where she had, as she says, "the good fortune to work with poet Deborah Keenan," who is also a member of the Laurel Poetry Collective. Now retired, Nelson lives and writes poetry from her home in Minneapolis.