Jeff Mann was born in Clifton Forge, Virginia, and spent his first ten years in Covington, Virginia, before moving with his family to Hinton, West Virginia, where he attended high school. Graduating from West Virginia University in 1981, he received from the College of Arts and Sciences a B.A. in English and from the School of Agriculture and orestry a B.S. in Recreation with a Nature Interpretation emphasis. He later returned to West Virginia University to complete an M.A. in English. Mann presently divides his time between Hinton, West Virginia; Charleston, West Virginia; and Blacksburg, Virginia, where he has taught in the English Department since 1989. He teaches an assortment of classes, among them Appalachian literature, Gay and Lesbian literature, Creative Writing, freshman composition (focusing on the vampire in literature and film), Southern literature, and satire.