Jonathan Elliott was born in Los Angeles, California in 1965. He attended University of California at Berkeley where he was introduced to the poetry of Bob Kaufman through the beat poet Neely Cherkovski. He became interested in poetry and was a friend to Eric Walker, Julia Vinograd among others. He lived in New York for a period of time as a teenager and began writing short stories while working on the New York Stock Exchange. He came back to Los Angeles after college (which he refused to complete because of Berkeley's participation in the Strategic Defense Initiative and Star Wars). He attended more college at the University of San Francisco, The Mcarthur School of Leadership at Palm Beach Atlantic and U.C.L.A, he has ten years of school and no degree. However, he interned for two years at a prominent LA Talent Agency and formed his own company, Evolve Talent Agency in September of 1999. After working his way through a commercial strike he was blacklisted in a backroom deal.