Chris Bell was born Holyhead, North Wales in 1960.After working in the UK and Germany variously as a writer for and editor of a music magazine, musician, record company runner and song lyricist, in 1996 Bell published The Bumper Book of Lies, a collection of short stories, several of which had previously been published in periodicals including The Third Alternative, Grotesque, The Heidelberg Review, Transversions, Not One of Us and Takahe.