She began publishing science fiction with "Recalling Cinderella" in L Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future, Vol I (anth 1985) edited by Algis Budrys.

The novel involves a group of people in the Pacific Northwest alienated by nineteenth century America experiencing a peculiar kind of first contact in 1873.

One character is Chinese American, another putatively mentally ill, a third a feminist, and lastly Sarah herself, a mysterious woman who is actually an extraterrestrial.

[1] Fowler also collaborated with Pat Murphy to found the James Tiptree, Jr. Award in 1991, a literary prize for science fiction or fantasy that "expands or explores our understanding of gender."

As such, she serves as the inspiration for the protagonist in Fowler's "What I Didn't See" The award's main focus is to recognize the authors, male or female, who challenge and reflect shifting gender roles.

[citation needed] Her other genre works also tended to focus on odd corners of the nineteenth century experiencing the unexpected or fantastic.

Fowler's novel, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves (2013), is told from the perspective of Rosemary, a college student, while attending University of California, Davis in her early twenties.

When Fern, added to the family as part of a long-term research study, suddenly disappears, Lowell leaves home to search for her.

During her research, Fowler came across an essay by Donna Haraway which discusses a 1920 expedition that was carried out by the curator of the New York National Museum of History.