Kitabatake Yao was born in Aomori city, Aomori Prefecture as the sixth of ten children. She began writing in high school and won a number of awards for short articles submitted to women’s magazines. After her graduation from high school, she moved to Tokyo and attended the Jissen Women's University, but was forced to drop out due to illness (tuberculosis (spondylitis)) after around 18 months.
Kitabatake Yao was born in Aomori city, Aomori Prefecture as the sixth of ten children. She started writing short articles during her high school years and won several awards from women’s magazines. After graduating from high school, she enrolled at Jissen Women's University but had to leave due to illness (tuberculosis (spondylitis)) after about 18 months.