Skinner was a Canadian born writer and historian who moved to New York in her early 20s and worked in the publishing industry at Macmillan, while writing children's books. She freelanced as a theatre critic for the New York Herald Tribune. She assumed editorial responsibility for a major nonfiction series, The Rivers of America, and edited the first six volumes. Primarily self-educated, she told one reader she had never attended a "school or a college." Known for wearing bright colors, particularly red dresses, along with beads, bracelets, and bangles. She was also an early environmentalist; her father had worked for the Hudson Bay Company and she retained deep fondness for the remote British Columbia region where she had grown up.