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Chrissie Gittins worked as an artist, and taught part-time for several years before becoming a full-time freelance writer. She has published two pamphlet collections of poetry and has won prizes in the Lancaster Literature Festival, the Poetry News, the Yorkshire Open and the Ottaker's Faber poetry competitions. Her poems, short stories and poems for children have appeared in a wide range of magazines, newspapers and anthologies, and several have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and on the BBC World Service. Two of her plays for radio have also been broadcast on BBC Radio 4.

"Chrissie Gittins inhabits a world of Chinese delicacy - yet she is unflinching. This poet is also an accomplished visual artist and her poems are well-sculpted, fine-boned, painterly and precise. Reflective as well as outward-looking, she writes vividly about the everyday as well as less familiar lives and places. Lively, accessible and gently surprising, hers is a voice refusing to be pinned down. There is no straining for effect, but much to enjoy and admire in this fresh and unusually natural first collection. It should not be overlooked." Moniza Alvi; "Chrissie Gittins' poems are elegant, sensual and deep. They are a joy to read first time round - and to revisit." Kate Kellaway"