Chérie Taylor Battiste was born in London in 1976. After graduating from SOAS University of London, she worked as a TV researcher before moving on to acting, winning the Norman Beaton Fellowship, joining the BBC Radio Drama Company and gaining various parts on stage and screen. Alongside this, she facilitated workshops in prisons and schools, going on to project manage the embedding of creative learning in schools with CapeUK.

Finding herself a lone parent of two, as austerity hit, she returned to poetry, her first means of expression during her challenging childhood. She saw poetry as freedom, a rare opportunity to have an uncensored cultural voice, and a way of sharing her unique set of experiences. Her first collection, Lioness, will be published by Valley Press in spring 2019.