Eleanor Marie Robertson was born on October 10, 1950 in Silver Spring, Maryland, USA. She was the youngest of five children, also the only girl, of a marriage with Irish ancestors. Her family were avid readers, so books were always important in her life. She attended a Catholic school and credits the nuns with instilling in her a sense of discipline. During her sophomore year in high school, she transferred to a local public school, where she met Ronald Aufdem-Brinke, her future first husband.

In August 17, 1968, as soon as she had graduated from high school, Eleanor married, against her parents wishes; the couple settled in Keedysville, Maryland. Her husband worked at his fathers sheet-metal business before joining Noras parents in their lighting company, while she worked briefly as a legal secretary. I could type fast but couldnt spell; I was the worst legal secretary ever, she says now. After their sons, Dan and Jason, were born, she stayed home. Calling this her Earth Mother years, she spent much of her time doing crafts, including ceramics and sewing her childrens clothes. The couple ended up separating; they divorced in January 1985.

In February 1979, a blizzard forced her hand to try another creative outlet. She was snowed in with a three- and a six-year-old with no kindergarten respite in sight and a dwindling supply of chocolate. During the now famous blizzard, she pulled out a pencil and notebook and began to write down one of her stories. It was then that a career was born. Several manuscripts and rejections later, her first book, Irish Thoroughbred, was published by Silhouette in 1981 under the authorship of Nora Roberts, a shortened form of her birth name Eleanor Marie Robertson, because she assumed that all authors had pen names.

Eleanor wrote, under another pseudonym (Jill March), a story titled Melodies of Love for a magazine.