Anna Crowe was born in Devonport, Plymouth and grew up in France and in Sussex. She has an MA from the University of St Andrews, where she and her family have lived permanently since 1986. She was a co-founder and, for the first seven years, Artistic Director of StAnza, Scotland's Poetry Festival.

She won the Peterloo Open Poetry Competition in 1993 and 1997. Her first collection, Skating Out of the House, was published in 1997 by Peterloo Poets,  who also published Punk with Dulcimer  in 2005. Mariscat have published her work in two pamphlets: A Secret History of Rhubarb (2004), and Figure in a Landscape (2010). The latter was PBS Pamphlet Choice and subsequently published in Catalan and English as Paisatge amb figura (Ensiola, 2011). 

Anna Crowe has worked with Catalan poet Joan Margarit on two books of translations of his poetry: Tugs in the fog and Strangely Happy, both published by Bloodaxe, in 2006 and 2011 respectively.  She is collaborating with Joan Margarit on translating poems by R.S. Thomas for Proa, and working on a book of translations of the Mexican poet, Pedro Serrano, for Arc.