Ioanna Karystiani was born in Chania, Crete in 1952. She studied law and worked as a sketch artist. She appeared in the Greek literary sphere with a short story collection, Mrs Kataki, in 1994 and was honored with the State Literary Award for fiction for her second book Little England in 1998, which was also nominated for the Balkanika Literary Prize and the European Awards of Excellence. She has worked with director Pantelis Voulgaris on the screenplay for his film Deep Soul (Kastaniotis, 2009) and wrote the screenplays for his films Brides (Kastaniotis, 2004), Little England and The Last Note.