August Kleinzahler was born in Jersey City, New Jersey. He attended the University of Wisconsin as an East Asian Studies major, dropped out, and eventually finished a degree as an English major at the University of Victoria in British Columbia.

Kleinzahler’s work experience has included driving a cab, lumberjacking, locksmithing, and working in the Alaska State Museum, designing learning kits for native children. He has taught writing at Brown University, the University of California at Berkeley, and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, as well as to homeless veterans in the Bay Area. He has been widely published in various magazines and journals and is author of Earthquake Weather, Storm Over Hackensack, Red Sauce, Whisky and Snow, and Green Sees Things in Waves.

Kleinzahler has received various awards and fellowships, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Lila Acheson Wallace/Reader’s Digest Award for Poetry, and an Award in Literature from the Academy of American Poets.