Chris Cottrell was born in Portland, Oregon but grew up on Maui. He has been writing, editing and publishing for over a decade and, after a few harrowing adventures, returned to Portland State University where he became one of the first people awarded the M.F.A. in poetry. His fiction, reviews, and poems have appeared in The Scene, Willamette Week, Portland Review, Clackamas Literary Review, Oregon Literary Review, Nervy Girl!, Poor Claudia, Haggard & Halloo, and The Grove Review (forthcoming). Cottrell's Chapbooks Normal Park & Paradise and [luvthrong] are out of print.

In 2008, Cottrell won 2nd Place in the WEGO Call for Papers, and was a finalist for the Tom and Phyllis Burnam Award and the Shelly Reece Award. Cottrell has since been awarded the 2009 and 2010 Shelley Reece and placed as a finalist for the 2009 Tom and Phyllis Burnam Award and the 2010 Academy of American Poets Award.

Chris became the editor of Portland Review in July 2008, running the magazine until June 2010. He also teaches six-week intensive literary and writing courses at Linfield College Upward Bound, where his suspicions that thirteen and seventeen are fully capable of writing college-level papers are regularly proven true. Cottrell has also been a Literary Arts Writers in the Schools intern and WITS Writer-in-Residence, positions which tapped deeply into his love for working with people to expand literary horizons. He is currently an adjunct at Chemeketa Community College, Portland Community College, and Portland State University, but still takes time to bartend and cook at various Portland catering companies each summer.