Tom Franklin was born and raised in Dickinson, Alabama. He held various jobs as a struggling writer living in South Alabama, including working as a heavy-equipment operator in a grit factory, a construction inspector in a chemical plant, and a clerk in a hospital morgue.

In 1997, he received his MFA from the University of Arkansas. His first book, Poachers, was named as a Best First Book of Fiction by Esquire, and Franklin received a 1999 Edgar Award for the title story. Franklin has published two novels: Hell at the Breech, published in 2003, and Smonk, published in 2006.

The recipient of the 2001 Guggenheim Fellowship, Franklin now teaches in the University of Mississippi's MFA program and lives in Oxford, Mississippi with his wife, the poet Be.