Mark Vinz was born September 27, 1942 in Rugby, North Dakota and grew up in both the Minneapolis and Kansas City areas. He received both his Bachelor’s and Masters from the Universities of Kansas in 1964 and 1966. He also did two additional years of graduate study in New Mexico. He was a professor of English at Minnesota State University Moorhead from 1968 to 2007. While at MSUM, he co-founded in 1995 their Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program and was its first coordinator. From 1971 to 1981, Mark was an editor for the Dacotah Territory, a small press. He was a recipient of National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in poetry and a poet laureate title for North Dakota.