[1] She began writing early for the local newspapers, then was encouraged by author Helen Hunt Jackson to send verse to more important periodicals.

"[1] In 1884, Canadian poet Charles G.D. Roberts wrote of her that "as far as I am aware her poems are not yet gathered in book form, and are therefore only to be obtained, few in number, by gleaning from the magazines and periodicals.

Yet so red-blooded are these verses, of thought and of imagination all compact, so richly individual and so liberal in promise, that the name of their author is already become conspicuous.... We are justified in expecting much from her genius.

"[4] In Modern American Poetry, Louis Untermeyer called her "the author of some dozen books of verse, most of them lightly lyrical in mood, although a few of her poems have a more dramatic quality.

"[1] For an essay on Thomas by Kevin De Ornellas see Early American Nature Writers: A Biographical Encyclopedia by Daniel Patterson (Editor), Greenwood Press (2007), ISBN 0-313-34680-1.