Author Tim McLaurin was born and raised in Fayetteville, North Carolina. During his two-year tour with the U.S. Marine Corps, he served in Panama, Cuba, and Puerto Rico, then later spent a year in Tunisia with the Peace Corps, where he taught dairy farming and bee keeping. His diverse work background includes time spent as a Coca-Cola salesman, a snake handler for a carnival, a truck driver, and a construction worker. Once he started to publish his writing, he went on to teach at the University of North Carolina, Duke University, and North Carolina State University.