Claire was born in Scotland and moved to Australia at the age of three. She was a metropolitan journalist with the Herald Sun for more than 20 years, and before that at the Footscray-based Western Times, for which she won the Melbourne Press Club's 1995 Young Journalist of the Year award. During her time at the Herald Sun she held roles including books editor, film writer and features editor. She was the editor-in-chief of mX and News Corp's national head of entertainment before leaving to pursue a career in freelance writing. Her hobbies include hiking, rock climbing, cooking and dystopian sci-fi films. The Crag is her first novel.