[4] When 11 years of age, she wrote an article for the Atlanta Constitution, which was published and favorably noticed by the editor, and at 15, she became a regular correspondent of that journal.

Many of Barnes's earlier works appeared in the Sundayschool Visitor (juvenile periodical; Methodist Episcopal Church, South, Nashville, Tennessee).

[5][2] Barnes served as junior editor for the Woman's Board of Missions, Methodist Episcopal Church, South, having charge of its juvenile paper and of all its quarterly supplies of literature.

[2] Among her numerous stories which proved to be quite popular, were: Gospel Among the Slaves, The Ferry Maid of the Chattahoochee (Philadelphia, Penn Publishing Company), "ow Achon-hoah Found the Light (Richmond, Presbyterian Committee of Publication), Matouchon, The Outstretched Hand, Carmio, Little Burden-Sharers, Chonite, Marti, The King's Gift, The Red Miriok, The Little Lady of the Fort, Little Betty Blew, Mistress Moppet, A Lass of Dorchester (Boston, Lee and Shepard), Isilda, Tatong, The Laurel Token, and several others.

[6] Izilda (Presbyterian Committee of Publication, Richmond, Virginia) was reviewed by the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, who stated that it is a story for girls, the scene of which is laid in São Paulo, Brazil, the centre of a flourishing Protestant mission.

Woman's Foreign Missionary Society also reviewed Tatono, The Little Slave: A Story of Korea (Presbyterian Publication Committee, Richmond) stating, "The plot is good, the incidents well worked in, and the customs and manners of Korea so thoroughly a part of the story and the missionary element so entirely necessary to it, that the least interested in missions will read every paragraph for the story's sake, while the most interested will seize with eagerness so charming an opportunity to interest the uninterested in the Hermit Nation.