Fraser was born in 1937 and grew up in Oklahoma, Colorado, and California.

Kathleen Fraser's published works include What I Want (1974), Magritte Series (1977), New Shoes (1978), Each Next, narratives (1980), Something (even human voices) in the foreground, a lake (1984), Notes Preceding Trust (1987), When New Time Folds Up (1993), WING (1995), il cuore : the heart - New & Selected Poems (1970-1995) (1997, and Categories Forced Into Coupling (2004).

During her teaching career at San Francisco State University from 1972 to 1992, she founded The American Poetry Archives and both wrote and narrated the hour video Women Working in Literature.

Fraser was a cofounder, with Beverly Dahlen and Frances Jaffer, of the feminist poetics newsletter (HOW)ever. From 1983-1991, Fraser published and edited HOW(ever), a journal focused on innovative writing by contemporary women and neglected texts by American modernist women writers.