Anne Stevenson, though of partly Scottish ancestry, is an Anglo-American, born in England in 1933. She is a highly-acclaimed poet, critic and biographer. Born in England , she grew up in the States, where she spent her student days in Ann Arbor at the University of Michigan. Granny Scarecrow (Bloodaxe, 2000) touches on these years; while her book, Poems 1955-2005, is a selection drawing on thirteen earlier collections. Stone Milk was published in 2007.

Twice a resident of Scotland, she moved to Glasgow with a young family in 1967, and was Poet in Residence at Dundee University from 1973 to 1975. In 1987-89 she was Writer in Residence at Edinburgh University. In 2007 she received, from New Mexico, the Lannan Award for a Lifetime's Achievement in Poetry and from Chicago, the American Poetry Foundation's Neglected Master's Award, with publication of a Selected Poems by the Library of America.

She has also published a study of Elizabeth Bishop’s work, Five Looks at Elizabeth Bishop (1998), and a biography of Sylvia Plath, Bitter Fame (1989).