Bruce Coffin was born and raised in Woodstock, Vermont and educated at the University of Vermont; Trinity College, Dublin; New York University; and Wesleyan University.

He has taught English in independent schools in the U.S. and in England and is a contributor to scholarly journals.

Since 1972 he has been on the faculty of Westover School in Middlebury, Connecticut.

He is married with two grown children, and he divides his time between Middlebury and Woodstock.

In his youth Bruce was an explorer, discovering people and places on his bicycle, playing baseball, and finding lessons in nature. Recapturing the tempo, realities, and atmosphere of a simpler era in a self-sufficient New England village, Coffin touches universal chords of memory of life in small town America in his book.