James Ashbrook Perkins was born in Covington, Kentucky on February 7, 1941. After attending Holmes High School, he obtained degrees from Centre College (1963), Miami University (1965), and The University of Tennessee (1972), where he got his PhD in English. While working on his doctorate, Perkins spent two years teaching at All Saints Episcopal School in Vicksburg, Mississippi. His dissertation was completed under Bobby Leggett on the American socialist poet Kenneth Fearing. After a year as instructor at UTK, Perkins was hired to teach creative writing and American literature at Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania, where he eventually became Professor Emeritus of English and Public Relations.

Perkins participated in four summer seminars and institutes hosted by the National Endowment for the Humanities. At a seminar under R. W. B. Lewis, Perkins was reintroduced to the work of Robert Penn Warren and subsequently spent almost two decades researching and writing about Warren. Perkins authored books on Robert Penn Warren, Robert Drake, David Madden and other Southern writers. He was also a poet and writer of short stories. In 1998 Perkins was named a senior Fulbright Scholar to Seoul National University in Korea. Perkins passed away in 2022.