Although Barr was born in Nevada, she was named not after her state of birth but after a character in one of her father’s favorite books. She grew up in Johnstonville, California, and finished college at the University of California, Irvine. With a masters degree in drama, she pursued a career in theater,TV, films, commercials and voice work for almost two decades.

When her then-director husband changed careers and became interested in the environmental movement she began working as a seasonal park ranger in the summer.

Barr created the Anna Pigeon series while working at her second seasonal job in Guadalupe Mountains National Park, Texas. Pigeon is a law enforcement ranger with the United States National Park Service. The books in the series take place in various national parks, where Pigeon solves murders that are often related to natural resource issues.

Barr's first permanent Park Ranger job was on the Natchez Trace Parkway in Mississippi. She resigned to focus on writing when her books began to achieve commercial success.

Barr has published three other books besides the Anna Pigeon series:

• , a lesbian historical novel set in the days of the Western frontier.
• , a memoir
• , psychological thriller

• , Guadalupe Mountains National Park
• , Isle Royale National Park
• , Mesa Verde National Park
• , Lassen Volcanic National Park
• , Cumberland Island National Seashore
• , Carlsbad Caverns National Park
• , Statue of Liberty National Monument
• , Natchez Trace Parkway
• , Glacier National Park
• , Natchez Trace Parkway
• , Dry Tortugas National Park
• , Yosemite National Park
• , Rocky Mountain National Park
• , Isle Royale National Park
• ,Big Bend National Park
• , New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park

Anna Pigeon character

Anna Pigeon is a fictional park ranger and detective in the series of novels by the same name. She shares some life experiences with the author such working as a national park ranger and having had a husband who worked in the theatre in NYC. The character of Anna is middle aged, small and wiry, and wears her graying hair in a long braid. She is the widow of an actor who was killed by a taxi crossing the street in NYC. She remarried a minister named Paul Davidson, who is also a sheriff. She has one sister Molly, a NYC therapist, whose husband, Frederick, is a retired FBI agent..