Fabilli's published work centered on her personal experiences, particularly those related to her Italian heritage and her Roman Catholic faith, and she did not consider herself to be a Beat poet.
During World War II, Fabilli worked swing shift as a laborer in the Kaiser Shipyards in Richmond, California.
When the war ended, Fabilli taught art to seventh-graders in Berkeley and to adults at the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) in Oakland, and did clerical work for the East Bay Labor Journal before starting a career of almost 30 years teaching art and California history at the Oakland Museum.
Fabilli contributed poetry to anthologies and collections, including New Directions 8 (1944); Perspectives on William Everson (1992); Dark God of Eros: A William Everson Reader (2003), and Light Dark Wind Moon (2004), and to periodicals, including Occident, Circle Magazine, Talisman, Epitaph, Berkeley Miscellany, Ritual, and Experimental Review.
[2] The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, has a collection, "Mary Fabilli papers, circa 1936–2009" that includes correspondence, diaries, notebooks, and other material.