David Matlin was born in Upland, California. He has worked as a migrant laborer, truck driver, construction worker, and spent time in foundries, steel mills, and fields. In 1971, he entered the famed graduate program in English literature at SUNY Buffalo, where he studied poetry, history, and art under the tutelage of Robert Creeley, and wrote his doctoral dissertation on William Blake’s prophetic book, Jerusalem.
In 1973, Matlin moved to New York, where he became immersed in the arts and the fascinations of that great city. In 1981, he moved with his family to the Hudson River Valley and the Catskill Mountains, where he lived for sixteen years teaching in prisons, being a house husband, building homes and studios, chopping wood, and walking the forests and wild landscapes surrounding his home.
In 1997, he moved again with his family, back across the continent to California, where he lives, writes, explores the deserts of the West, and teaches at San Diego State University.
