Ms. McMillan received her B.A. in journalism from the University of California at Berkeley and attended the MFA film program at Columbia University. She has been awarded a 1988 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and the Doubleday/Columbia University Literary Fellowship. She has been a guest columnist for The New York Times's "Hers" column and has reviewed books for The New York Times Book Review, The Atlanta Constitution, and The Philadelphia Inquirer. She has been a three time Fellow at Yaddo Artist Colony and the MacDowell Colony.