Anthony Petrosky was born in Exeter, Pennsylvania. The studied at the State University of New York at Buffalo, and has taught in China and Eastern Europe. He is a professor at he University of Pittsburgh. His first book, Jurgis Petraskas, was selected by Philip Liveine as winner of the 1982 Walt Whitman Award of The Academy of American Poets and was named a Notable Book of the Year by the American Library Association. He is also the author (with David Bartholomae) of Ways of Reading and Facts, Artifacts, and Counterfacts.
