Raiff Taranday was born and raised in the Boston area. He has spent most of his adult life as an elementary school teacher, first in Massachusetts, then in locations as diverse as Kyiv, Ukraine, and Shenzhen, China. He was teaching fifth graders in China in 2020 and went on vacation to Hanoi for Lunar New Year right before the initial outbreak of COVID-19. He was subsequently swept up in a wave of global catastrophe that scattered him across various Southeast Asian countries before eventually being deposited back home in the United States. During quarantine, he used writing as an outlet to stay (mostly) sane. He currently resides in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts with several imaginary pets and a girlfriend who is usually pretty nice to him.