[1] She is also a cultural commentator on literature and the arts, and makes appearances on radio and television, as well as leading workshops and chairing literary events in the UK and at international festivals.

Armitstead was born in south London, England, and spent her early childhood in Northern Nigeria, attending primary school in Kaduna.

[3][4] She worked as a trainee reporter in South Wales, before joining the Hampstead & Highgate Express as a theatre critic and sub-editor, moving from there to the Financial Times and then in 1992 to The Guardian, where she has been Arts Editor, Literary Editor (in which position she was described as "Respected blue-stocking and keen cyclist who keeps the wheels turning on ever more ambitious books pages"),[5] Head of Books and, most recently, Associate Editor (Culture).

[3] Armitstead's essays have been published in New Performance (Macmillan, 1994) and Women: A Cultural Review (Oxford University Press, 1996).

She was editor of The Bedside Guardian 2016, which Ian Sansom described as "a work I confidently predict will stand the test of time.