Scott Bentley was born in Burbank, California, in 1964. He received a BA from UC Santa Cruz in 1986, an MA from UC San Diego in 1989 and an MFA from Mills College in 2004. He lives with his family in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he teaches writing at California State University East Bay.

He is the editor and publisher of LETTERBOX poetry magazine and the author of two chapbooks: Edge (Birdcage Chapbooks, 1987) and Out of Hand (Parenthesis Writing Series, 1989), and two full-length books: Ground Air (O Books, 1994) and The Occasional Tables (sub press, 2000). He has co-translated the work of Brazilian writer Regis Bonvicino and others. Some of his latest translations appear in New American Writing and The Pip Anthology of World Poetry of the 20th Century (Vol. 3)-- Nothing the Sun Could Not Explain: 20 Contemporary Brazilian Poets (Green Integer, 2003). Other work has appeared in 580 Split, Bird Dog, Dusie, Lyric&, Mirage #4/Periodical, The Poker, The Raddle Moon, The Styles, Syllogism, Tinfish, and elsewhere.