In the 1960s, Catacalos worked as a reporter and arts columnist for the
San Antonio Light newspaper. She was an early advocate for and participant in the artist-in-the-schools programs, building a legacy that lived on for decades after. Catacalos spent 1989 to 2003 in California, where she was first a Stegner Creative Writing Fellow at
Stanford University, then executive director of The Poetry Center/American Poetry Archives at
San Francisco State University (1991–1996). She was a visiting scholar at the Institute for Research on Women and Gender at Stanford until she returned to San Antonio in 2003 to become the executive director of Gemini Ink, a literary arts center. She retired from Gemini Ink in 2012. ==Death==