Born in Toledo, Ohio, she attended Smith College and graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1962. She worked and lived in San Francisco Bay area for about fifteen years before moving to Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

Her first lesbian novel was Zoe's Book (1976). Pass lived in New England for four years where she taught fiction writing in the Department of Continuing Education at the University of New Hampshire. She also helped to establish a battered women's shelter.