Paul Cook was born in Tucson, Arizona in 1950 and has lived all of his life in Arizona with the exception of three years in Salt Lake City from 1978-1981 where he studied English at the University of Utah where he received a Ph.D. in 1981. He currently resides in Tempe, Arizona and has been teaching at Arizona State University since 1982. He has taught a wide range of courses from creative writing courses to literature courses, both British and American. He also teaches ASU's first science fiction class. He also designed, built, and installed the Virginia C. Piper Creative Writing Center's Time Capsule, which is not to be opened until 2103.