Jemma Borg was born in Essex. She took a first in zoology at Oxford, where she also completed a doctorate in evolutionary genetics. She has worked as a science editor, environmental campaigner and teacher, and has travelled and lived briefly in places including Australia, Pakistan and Hong Kong. Her poems have been widely published in magazines and anthologies, and she has received prizes including the New Writing Ventures Award for Poetry in 2007 and a residency at the Leighton Artists' Colony at the Banff Centre in Canada in 2009. She currently lives in East Sussex with her husband and young son.