Although born in Troy, Alabama, Jesse Hill Ford grew up in Nashville, Tennessee. He received a BA from Vanderbilt University in 1951, and while there, he was campus correspondent for the Nashville Tennessean. Ford continued to work as a journalist while completing his master's degree at the University of Florida in 1955. From 1955 to 1957, he worked as a public relations director for the Tennessee Medical Association and for the American Medical Association in Chicago, Illinois, but in 1957, his family moved to Humboldt, Tennessee. Ford published his first novel, Mountains of Gilead (1961), followed by the television and stage scripts of his drama The Conversion of Buster Drumwright in 1964. In 1965 came The Liberation of Lord Byron Jones, a fictionalized account of the killing of a Black undertaker who wanted to leave his wife for having an affair with a white policeman. He later dramatized this work for a movie version. Ford also taught as a visiting lecturer at several universities, including Memphis State (1969-71) and Vanderbilt (1987). Then, in 1975, he published The Raider, a historical novel set in West Tennessee before and during the Civil War. Later, Ford moved to Hollywood, rewriting screenplays. He finally returned to Nashville where he died by suicide following failing health on June 1, 1996.