Bettina Gärtner was born in Frankfurt (Main) in 1962 and has lived in Vienna since early childhood. She studied law and history studies withour graduating, briefly studied journalism, then trained and worked as a freelancer in graphics and production.

Bettina Gärtner began publishing in literary magazines in 2008 and received a state scholarship for literature from the bm:ukk for her work on the novel Unter Schafen (2015), which was then awarded the 2015 Author's Prize for particularly successful debuts by the Austrian Bundeskanzleramt. Her work on the novel Herrmann (2020) was supported by a project grant for literature from the Federal Chancellery.

Most recently, she has mainly published essays, including Egofiles 01 to 04 and Jedermanns Sache (Dear Hater).