Nicholas Campbell was born in Greensburg, Indiana, in 1949. He attended Catholic and public schools and later studied verse writing at California State University with poets Benjamin Saltman and Ann Stanford, where, in 1984, he earned a Bachelor's Degree in English Literature. He is the recipient of an Academy of American Poets Prize at Cal State Northridge, which he shared with poet, Jodi Johnson. In 1987 he was among those selected by poet William Stafford as one of the winners in the Montalvo Poetry Competition. He later attended San Francisco State University where he worked on an M.A. in