Born New Orleans, Louisiana, she lived in the city of her birth with her husband after concluding her formal education at Sophie Newcomb College, where she majored in Greek, and at the University of Minnesota where she received her M.A. in Greek. Several of her books were dedicated to her husband W. Burlie Brown, who was a history professor at Tulane University. The couple had two children. In addition to writing, she worked as a teacher and a welfare visitor in Louisiana. In 1959, she was nominated for the Hugo Award for best new author, but her career was cut short when she died of lymphoma at the age of 41 in 1967. The fourth Nebula Award Anthology contains an obituary written by Daniel F. Galouye, and Anne McCaffrey dedicated her 1970 anthology Alchemy & Academe to Brown, along with several other people. Brown and McCaffrey had met at a Milford Writer's Workshop.

Brown's works were mainly written in the late 1950s to the mid 1960s and generally were favorably received by critics and readers. Her main novels are Sybil Sue Blue a.k.a Galactic Sybil Sue Blue, and its sequel, The Waters of Centaurus, which chronicle the life of Sybil Sue Blue, a female detective. The Waters of Centaurus was published after her death, and was copyrighted by her husband in 1970. She also collaborated on the novel Earthblood (1966) with Keith Laumer.

Her short stories appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Amazing Stories, Fantastic Universe and elsewhere. A collection of Brown's short stories entitled A Handful of Time, was published by Ballantine Books in 1963 [annotated as {in AHOT} in the list of short stories].

A full list of Brown's short stories follows:

• "From an Unseen Censor", Galaxy, Sep. 1958
• "Hair-Raising Adventure", Star Science Fiction #5, 1959
• "Virgin Ground", Worlds of If, Feb. 1959
• "Lost in Translation", Fantasy & Science Fiction, May 1959 {in AHOT}
• "Car Pool", Worlds of If, Jul. 1959 {in AHOT}
• "Save Your Confederate Money, Boys", Fantastic Universe, Nov. 1959 {in AHOT}
• "Flower Arrangement", Galaxy, Dec. 1959
• "Signs of the Times", Amazing Stories, Dec. 1959 {in AHOT}
• "David's Daddy", Fantastic, Jun. 1960
• "Step IV", Amazing Stories, Jun. 1960 {in AHOT}
• "There's Always a Way", Fantastic, Jul. 1960
• "A Little Human Contact", Fantasy & Science Fiction, Apr. 1960 {in AHOT}
• "Just a Suggestion", Fantasy & Science Fiction, Aug. 1960 {in AHOT}
• "Of All Possible Worlds", Fantasy & Science Fiction, Feb. 1961 {in AHOT}
• "Visiting Professor", Fantastic, Feb. 1961 {in AHOT}
• "The Ultimate Sin", Fantasy & Science Fiction, Oct. 1961
• "And a Tooth", Fantastic, Aug. 1962
• "Fruiting Body", Fantasy & Science Fiction, Aug. 1962 {in AHOT}
• "Smith's Revenge", original in A Handful of Time (1963) {in AHOT}
• "The Devaluation of the Symbol", original in A Handful of Time (1963) {in AHOT}
• "The Artist", Amazing Stories, May 1964