Hano Tama was born in Iwakuni, Yamaguchi Prefecture, in 1897. Her biological mother died when she was two years old, and she was raised by her father and his stepmother. After graduating from a girls' school, she started working as a substitute teacher, but was fired and forced to leave her hometown of Iwakuni. Relying on relatives, she moved to Tokyo, where Tama became strongly conscious of her childhood dream, and by submitting a novel to a contest, she carved out her path as a writer.