J erry Spinelli was born on February 1, 1941, in Norristown, Pennsylvania, where he spent his childhood, living in a brick row house in the West End. At sixteen, he wrote his first poem celebrating a victory of his high school football team. After a local paper published it, he claims that he stopped wanting to be a major league baseball player and started wanting to be a writer. He graduated from Gettysburg College with a bachelor's degree in 1963. In 1964 he received a master's degree in creative writing from Johns Hopkins University. He also attended Temple University in 1964.

He married Eileen Mesi, the mother of six children and herself a writer, in 1977. He and Eileen have had one more child.

During the years 1966 to 1989, when he worked for a technical publisher, Spinelli continued his desire to be a full-time author. He began his career as an...