Cathy Barber has an MFA in Poetry from the Vermont College of Fine Arts and an MA in English from California State University, Hayward (now Cal State East Bay). Her work has been published more than 100 times in journals and anthologies across three continents, including in the San Francisco Bay Guardian, Slant, SLAB, Kestrel, and the Medical Journal of Australia.

Her poetry ranges from the humorous to the deeply personal, from golden shovels to pantoums to free verse. It engages with issues large and small, from health, motherhood, and the environment to Bigfoot, Barbie, and babies sent through the US mail.