Penelope Shuttle left school at 17, completing her first novel when she was only 20. Her home is in in Falmouth, Cornwall since 1970. She married the poet Peter Redgrove, who died in 2003, and they have a daughter, Zoe. They wrote a prose work together, The Wise Wound also published in America, and its sequel, Alchemy for Women.
Also she is a founder member of the Falmouth Poetry Group (1972 -). , and appeared at the 2008 StAnza Poetry festival.