Yvonne Gray was born in Ayrshire and grew up in Renfrewshire, Lanarkshire and Midlothian. She studied at Edinburgh University then worked in Angus as an English teacher and oboe instructor. In 1990 she moved to Orkney and settled near Stromness. She teaches English part-time and is a keen musician. Her poetry publications include Swappan the Mallimacks (Galdragon Press) and Nouster and Clear Day on the Black Craig, Orkney (Braga Press). She received a Scottish Arts Council Writers’ Bursary in 2002. Her first full collection, In the Hanging Valley, was published by Two Ravens Press in 2008.