John Spaulding was born in New Hampshire and grew up in Vermont. He earned degrees in English and Psychology and earned a PhD in Psychology from the University of Arizona, Tucson. He has worked as a psychologist for the Phoenix Indian Medical Center and the Puget Sound Service Unit of Indian Health Services. He teaches writing at Pima Community College in Tucson, Arizona.
Spaulding is the author of The Roses of Starvation (1987); Walking in Stone (1989), in which he imagines the lives of the colonists and Native Americans; The White Train (2004), chosen by Henry Taylor for the National Poetry Series; and Hospital (2011). His collections delve into history, myth, and the American landscape, often accessing a variety of voices. Spaulding also coedited the cookbook Civil War Recipes: Receipts from the Pages of Godey’s Lady’s Book (1999) with this mother, Lily May Spaulding, a former nurse and restaurant owner.