She studied with poet-intellectual Theodore Roethke in the University of Washington. Born in Port Angeles, she lived there a long time, while lecturing in different institutions such as the University of Montana, St. Lawrence University, etc. She met Raymond Carver in 1977, and their relationship very much influenced her literary work, which included helping to edit and publish his writing. Tess Gallagher has a cottage in Ireland, where she now lives and works.

She wrote Moon Crossing Bridge, a collection of love poems dedicated to Raymond Carver, who died in 1988.

Distant Rain, published in 2006, is a conversation between Tess and Jakucho Setouchi, a Buddhist nun from Kyoto, that happened in Japan in 1990. Tess Gallagher traveled to Japan and met there a nun Jakucho Setouchi, well-known Japanese novelist, they spoke a lot about poetry, Tess Gallagher’s grief about Raymond Carver, differences between cultures.