Chrisman was educated in a one-room school and attended Virginia Polytechnic Institute from 1906 to 1908 but left at the end of his sophomore year.
His collection of sixteen short stories, Shen of the Sea: A Book for Children (1925), received the Newbery Medal in 1926.
Chrisman's other works included The Wind That Wouldn't Blow: Stories of the Merry Middle Kingdom for Children, and Myself (1927), Clarke County, 1836–1936 (1936), and Treasures Long Hidden: Old Tales and New Tales of the East (1941).
In his later years he became reclusive and seldom left his one-room cabin in Shirley, Arkansas.
Two local men discovered his body on February 21, 1953, after Chrisman missed one of his regular grocery-buying trips into Clinton.