Educated at Royal University, Trinity she was founder of the Twilight Literary Society which led her to meet W. B. Yeats.
She co-founded The Irish Review (1911–14) with David Houston, Thomas MacDonagh, et al. and she and her husband, Padraic Colum, edited the magazine for some months of its four-year career.
In middle age she was encouraged to return to writing, and became established as a literary generalist in American journals, including Poetry, Scribner's, The Nation, The New Republic, New York Times Review of Books, and The Tribune.
She accepted Joyce's very ill daughter Lucia for a week in their Paris flat at the height of her 'hebephrenic' attack, while herself preparing for an operation in May 1932.
She served as the literary editor of The Forum magazine from 1933 to 1941, commenced teaching comparative literature with Padraic at Columbia University in 1941.