According to her publisher’s website, Hecht winters on the east end of Long Island"Julie Hecht." SimonandSchuster.com. Simon and Schuster Publishers, 11 July 2010. Web. 8 Jul 2010. ., New York and spends summers and autumns in Massachusetts . She began writing fiction at age eight. In an interview with Publisher’s Weekly, Hecht claims the good feedback she got from her fellow schoolchildren gave her the motivation to keep writing. “It’s very nice to look at a group of people and see them all smiling and laughing,” Hecht told Publisher's Weekly interviewer Megan Kalan. Like her fictional protagonist, Hecht is reclusive. She rarely gives interviews and avoids the use of information technology like websites and email. She prefers to write by hand, propped up in bed, then handing her work over to a trusted typist.

Hecht’s books have been favorably reviewed by Publisher’s Weekly, Booklist, the Women’s Review of Books, and the Library Journal. Hecht’s main character’s obsessive nature has been praised by some reviewers, one of whom calls her “beguiling and alienated,” and panned by others who find her “tiresome.”