James Armstrong is a Midwestern native: he grew up on the sand plains of southern Michigan and went to Northwestern University as an undergraduate. He has an M.F.A. from Western Michigan University and a Ph.D. in American Literature from Boston University.

Armstrong has taught creative writing and American literature at Northwestern University and at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago's Writing Program.

He has published poems and essays in TriQuarterly, RHINO, Porcupine, Gulf Coast, Orion, and other journals. He was the recipient of the PEN-New England Discovery Award for Poetry 1996, and was Artist in Residence at Isle Royale National Park in 1994. In 1999 he received an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Poetry. His book of poems, Monument in a Summer Hat, was published in the fall of 1999 (New Issues Press).

Armstrong's scholarly essay on John James Audubon appeared in Animal Acts: Configuring the Human in Western History (Routledge 1997). He is on the editorial advisory board of Orion magazine. Armstrong lives in Winona with his wife, Laura, and their two daughters, Dot and Pippa.