Heimel was born in Philadelphia. She wrote for the alternative magazine "Distant Drummer" for two years in Philadelphia in the late 1960s. She briefly worked as a secretary and an actress. She joined "The SoHo Weekly News" as an advertising assistant, then began publishing articles with a piece on an anarchist conference in New York City. She became Features Editor, Centerfold Editor and a star features writer, worked briefly at Penthouse Magazine, returned to SWN, then left in 1980 to work at "New York" magazine and then "New York Daily News".