T. McKinley has an undergraduate degree in religious studies and a master's degree in folklore. He has worked a variety of jobs in his life, including short-order cook, towel boy at a YMCA, sperm donor, bartender, and professional cartoonist, and he spent six years working as a stand-up comic in Los Angeles. For the past eighteen years, he has taught English and theater in a variety of private middle and high schools. He is a suicide survivor who is happily married with two children.