Jeff B. Skinner was born in Illinois, the youngest child of five children. His family moved to the City of Evanston where he attended St. Athanasius Grade School and Evanston Township High School, graduating in 1978. He attended Southern Illinois University. There, he stayed for two years and started a college paper called, "No Nonsense News." In 1981 he studied audio engineering at Columbia College in Chicago. After graduation in 1983, he worked for a dozen audio engineering firms, and also worked as a technician for television. He has published numerous science fiction novels and short stories in various magazines and anthologies and has been an editor and contributing editor for online science fiction venues.