M. Travis Lane was born Millicent Travis in San Antonio, Texas, the daughter of Elsie Ward Travis and William Livingston Travis, a colonel in the United States Air Force. The family left San Antonio within the year. "I have no hometown," the poet has written; Air Force duties required the family to continue to move, sometimes almost yearly, from station to station. Her education was also gathered in various places. Ultimately she went on to specialize in English literature at university, taking a B.A. at Vassar (1956), an M.A. at Cornell (1957), a Ph.D. at Cornell (1967). It was at Vassar that she often used the name Travis; she now no longer uses Millicent.

She met her husband, the critic Lauriat Lane, Jr., at Cornell, where he taught; they moved to New Brunswick in 1960, had two children (Hannah Marguerite Lane and Lauriat Lane III), and became Canadian citizens...