Crystal Warren grew up in Port Elizabeth but has spent her entire adult life in Grahamstown/Makhanda. She has studied Librarianship, English literature and History, and works as a librarian, literary researcher and museum curator at Amazwi, South African Museum for Literature. She edited the New Coin poetry magazine for four years and has taught creative writing courses and workshops. Her poems have been published in several South African journals and anthologies. Her first collection of poems Bodies of Glass was published by Aerial Publishing in 2004. Her second collection, Predictive Text, was published by Modjaji Books in 2019.