Chrissie Gittins

Chrissie Gittins was born in Lancashire and lives in Forest Hill, London. Her poetry collections include Sharp Hills (Indigo Dreams, 2019), I’ll Dress One Night As You (Salt, 2010), and Armature (Arc, 2003). Paekakariki Press published her third pamphlet collection, Professor Heger’s Daughter (2013) in traditional letterpress with original wood engravings.

Gittins is the author of two short story collections: Family Connections (Salt, 2007) and Between Here and Knitwear (Unthank Books, 2015). Her collections of children’s poetry include Adder, Bluebell, Lobster (Otter-Barry, 2016), Stars in Jars (Bloomsbury, 2014), and The Humpback’s Wail (Rabbit Hole, 2010), which was a Poetry Book Society Choice. Now You See Me, Now You … (Rabbit Hole, 2002) and I Don’t Want an Avocado for an Uncle (Rabbit Hole 2006) were also Poetry Book society choices and were shortlisted for the CLPE Poetry Award. Her radio plays for BBC Radio 4 include Poles Apart, Starved for Love, Life Assurance, and Dinner in the Iguanodon.

Gittins has received two Arts Council Writers’ Awards, a Hawthornden Fellowship, and awards from the Author’s Foundation and the Oppenheim-John Downes Memorial Trust. She has read at festivals around the UK, at the British Council in Bangkok, and at the Cornelia Street Café and Poets House in New York. She is included in the British Council directory of UK and Commonwealth writers.