Raymond Vettese was born in Arbroath in 1950. He was educated at Montrose Academy where he first started writing, mainly in English. A period as a journalist at the Montrose Review introduced him to the work of Hugh MacDiarmid, who worked on that paper during the 1920s and wrote much of his finest work during that period.  After this, Vettese turned to writing in Scots.

His first book, The Richt Noise (Macdonald, 1988) won the Saltire Society Best First Book Award. A second collection, A Keen New Air (Saltire Society), followed in 1995.