Cris Mazza is the author of over a dozen novels and collections of fiction. Her most recent books are the novel Waterbaby and collection of fictions Trickle-Down Timeline. Among her other notable titles are a memoir, Indigenous / Growing Up Californian, the novella Disability, plus the critically acclaimed Is It Sexual Harassment Yet? She was also co-editor of Chick-Lit: Postfeminist Fiction, and Chick-Lit 2 (No Chick Vics), anthologies of women's fiction, and was a recipient of an NEA fellowship . Mazza's first novel, How to Leave a Country, while still in manuscript won the PEN / Nelson Algren Award for book-length fiction. The judges included Studs Terkel and Grace Paley. Since then, Mazza's fiction has been reviewed numerous times in The New York Times Book Review, The Wall Street Journal, MS Magazine, Chicago Tribune Books, The Los Angeles Times Book Review, The Voice Literary Supplement, The San Francisco Review of Books, Time Out: London, and many other book review publications. In spring 1996, Mazza was the cover feature in Poets & Writers Magazine, and in December 2004 Poets & Writers published her essay "Chick-Lit and the Perversion of a Genre." In December 2008 AWP Writer's Chronicle featured a new interview with Mazza.

A native of Southern California, Cris Mazza grew into early adulthood in San Diego County. She now lives 50 miles west of Chicago and is a professor in the Program for Writers at the University of Illinois at Chicago.