Jon Corelis was born in California and grew up in and around Chicago, where he earned a degree in Classical Languages and Literatures at the College of the University of Chicago. He later took a doctorate in Classics at Stanford, and taught Classics and Humanities at Stanford, the University of California, and the University of Minnesota. After a subsequent career as a software specialist in Silicon Valley, he now lives in Wisconsin. His poetry and other writings have been published in print and on web sites in eight countries, and he has given lectures and readings by invitation in America and Europe.