John Whalen was born in Michigan and grew up in Tennessee. He's lived in Spokane since 1992. His first book of poetry, Caliban, was published by Lost Horse Press. He has also put out three chapbooks, including Above the Pear Trees, which won the 2014 Floating Bridge Press Chapbook Award.
Whalen's poems have appeared in EPOCH, VQR, The Gettysburg Review, and CutBank and is upcoming in Terrain, Rock and Sling, and the Catamaran Literary Reader.