Bryan Jones was born in Nebraska, grew up in Central City, Neligh, Chappell and Geneva. He received his B. A. from Roosevelt University in Chicago and attended graduate school at the University of New Orleans, University of Nebraska at Kearney and Middlebury Breadloaf School of English. Jones taught school for three decades and operated a beef stocker-feeder operation for 11 years.

He previously published The Farming Game (1982), Mark Twain Made Me Do It & Other Plains Adventures (1997) and his work was reprinted in the nonfiction anthology The Big Empty (2007). His essays, articles, short fiction and poetry have appeared in Wisconsin Magazine of History, New Land Review, Prairie Sentinel, Great Plains Quarterly, New Farm, Teacher Magazine and North Dakota Quarterly among others. He lives somewhere in the American West with his wife Kathy, two loyal dogs and a mangy cat.