Jayne Anne Phillips was born in Buckhannon, West Virginia, on July 19, 1952. She began to write at the age of nine as a way to entertain herself and her friends, and at the age of fifteen she became serious about herself as a writer and started to compose poetry. She received encouragement from her mother and a high school teacher, Irene McKinney, who was a poet in her own right. Phillips attended West Virginia University, and continued writing, publishing her work in small literary magazines.

Following her graduation from West Virginia University in 1974, Phillips hitchhiked with friends to California, lived in Oakland, California, for a time, and then moved to Colorado. She held various jobs to support herself during this period and gathered material that has sustained her writing ever since, although perhaps her short story collections most obviously record the lives she led, and the lives...