Franklin Burroughs was born, raised, and received his elementary and high school education in Conway, South Carolina. A graduate of the University of the South, Franklin Burroughs took the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees at Harvard and served as Professor of English at Bowdoin College from 1968 until his retirement in 2002. His essays have been published in Harper's, Backpacker, Kenyon Review, Sewanee Review, and many other magazines, and have been reprinted in Best American Essays and The Norton Anthology of Nature Writing.