Sarah's mother recognized signs of her daughter's creative storytelling talent as young as kindergarten.

During the mid-1980s, Bird was a founding contributing-editor to Austin's Third Coast Magazine, for which she wrote numerous feature and humor articles.

In 1986, her comic novel Alamo House was published based on her experience as a graduate student at the University of Texas.

[3] Bird wrote the screenplay for the movie Don't Tell Her It's Me (1990, starring Shelley Long and Steve Guttenberg), adapting the Boyfriend School novel.

The Boyfriend School and The Mommy Club, published by Ballantine in 1989 and 1991, respectively, were both humorous novels drawing on Bird's life experiences.