John Enright was born in Buffalo, New York, in 1945. He earned a bachelor's degree from City College of New York while working full-time at Fortune, Time, and Newsweekmagazines. He later received a master's degree in folklore at UC Berkeley, before starting a career in publishing. In 1981, Enright left the United States to teach at the American Samoa Community College. He spent the next twenty-six years working for environmental, cultural, and historical resource preservation on the islands in the South Pacific. Over the past five decades, his essays, articles, short stories, and poems have appeared in more than ninety books, anthologies, journals, periodicals, and online magazines. His collection of poems 14 Degrees Southwon the University of the South Pacific Press's inaugural International Literature Competition. Enright currently lives in Owensboro, Kentucky, with his wife Connie Payne.