from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where she studied under Allen Tate, Fred Chappell, and Robert W.

[1] After receiving her M.F.A., Byer became poet-in-residence at Western Carolina University, 1988–98, as well as UNC-G in 1995 and Lenoir-Rhyne College in 1999.

[6] In 2005, North Carolina Governor Michael Easley appointed Byer to be the state's fifth poet laureate following Fred Chappell whose term ended in 2002.

[11][12] Kathryn Stripling married Western Carolina University professor Jim Byer.

[3] Her work often dealt with lives and hardships of western North Carolina mountain inhabitants, especially women, in earlier generations.