Sara Moss studied history and politics at Macquarie University, Sydney after living at the Gold Coast, Queensland. Diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) as she completed her university studies, she returned to Queensland and enrolled in a journalism course with the Open Learning Institute of TAFE. In 1997, she was accepted into a poetry master class through the Queensland Writers' Centre. A Deep Fear of Trains (2000) was written while Moss was working through the feelings of anxiety and depression that come with being diagnosed and learning to live with a chronic illness. She has reflected that without MS, she may still have written poetry, but not the same poetry. The illness that has taken so much has also given her a unique way of seeing the world and writing about it that can reach out to touch others.