R.C. Binstock was raised in Lexington, Mass; USA . His wife, Maja Maciak, immigrated from Poland in 2008. Since graduating from Harvard College with a degree in biological anthropology, R.C. worked as a technical writer in the IT industry.

He started writing stories around age eight. Ann Beattie has been his writing mentor and guide for a very long time.

R.C has three commercially published books: the story collection The Light of Home (Atheneum) and his novels Tree of Heaven and The Soldier (Soho Press). Following a lengthy interruption in his writing career he began a renewed effort to write and be read, leading to the publication of Swift River in 2014, Tree of Heaven (author’s edition) in 2015, Native Child in 2016, and The Vanished in 2018.