 She received her bachelor's degree from Vassar College and her Master of Fine Arts degree from Columbia University.Daum spent much of her twenties in New York City.In 1999, she moved to Lincoln, Nebraska, and the experience became the catalyst for her 2003 novel "The Quality of Life Report", which follows the life and times of an ambitious young television journalist who trades New York for the fictional town of Prairie City and explores themes of social class in America as well as the contradictions of the "simplicity movement."