Her father, Walter Bernard, held a BA from the University of New Hampshire and a PhD from MIT.
[3] Her mother, Claire, was a teacher, writer and librarian who taught 5th and 6th grade at the local elementary school.
She attended Harvard University, earning a BA magna cum laude in History and Literature in 1978.
[12] She is a professor of English and director of creative writing at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York.
[13] In 1981, Bernard married Peter Craig Freeman, the director of the Blum-Heiman Gallery in New York.