John Tipton was born in 1964 in Alton, Illinois. After an itinerant childhood—mostly in Indiana—and a stint in the army, he attended the University of Chicago, where he earned a degree in philosophy. He is the author of two poetry collections published by Flood Editions, SURFACES (2004) and PARAMNESIA (2016), as well as two translations of Greek tragedies: Sophocles' AJAX (2008) and Aeschylus's SEVEN AGAINST THEBES (2015), also published by Flood. He is the publisher of Verge Books, a small literary press he runs with Peter O'Leary. Since 1990 he has called Chicago home.