Peter Ferris was born in 1944 and raised in Sacramento, California, and attended parochial schools, colleges, and universities in the Bay Area. He graduated with degrees in English and a Masters in Linguistics. Over the past 40 years, he ran tutorial centers, taught composition, literature, and linguistics in 2-year and 4-year colleges and English overseas, organized for labor unions and communities, and has been a journalist, cook, carpet cleaner, genealogist, gardener, citizen lobbyist, author, and poet. He now lives on the Oregon coast.