Catherine Chanter was born and raised in the West Country. She has written for BBC Radio 4 and has had short stories and poetry published in a wide range of anthologies and publications. Chanter has a Masters, with distinction, in Creative Writing from Oxford Brookes University, and won the Yeovil Poetry Prize in 2010.

The Well, her debut novel, won the 2013 Lucy Cavendish Prize for Unpublished Fiction, was longlisted for the 2015 CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger, and was picked for the Richard and Judy Book Club. Besides being an author, Catherine has led education provision within the NHS for young people with significant mental health problems. She currently works for a charity which seeks to engage excluded and vulnerable children and teenagers in learning.