Scott Hightower born in 1952 on a ranch in central Texas. He is the author of Part of the Bargain (Copper Canyon Press, 2005), winner of the Hayden Carruth Award for New and Emerging Poets, as well as Tin Can Tourist (2001) and Natural Trouble (2003). He attended the University of Texas and Columbia University and is currently a contributing editor of The Journal.

About his poetry, Marie Ponsot has said: "The most exciting quality of Hightower's work is its poetic and paradoxical unifying of emotional and intellectual depth with a marvelous quietness."

Hightower's poems have appeared in the Yale Review, Salmagundi, Ploughshares, AGNI, Barrow Street, New England Review, Southwest Review, Gulf Coast and many others. He has taught at Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC) and the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University. A former Poet-in-Residence at Fordham University, he lives and works in New York City.