Richard Folsom was born in Fayetteville, NC, where his father served in the military with the 82nd Airborne at Ft. Bragg. He graduated from Fayetteville Senior High School in 1967 and attended East Carolina University in Greenville, NC, graduating with a BA degree in History in 1971. He served for two years in the Army, and afterwards, returned to East Carolina where he completed an MA Ed in Instructional Design in 1974.

In 1975, Richard accepted a position as Audio Visual Coordinator at Fayetteville Technical Institute in Fayetteville, NC, and in 1980, he moved on to a personnel/training position with Carolina Power & Light Company in Raleigh, NC. In 1986, he and his wife bought a small restaurant in Greenville, NC. Then in 1991, Richard accepted a position at Pitt County Memorial Hospital as a Management trainer. After ten years, he left the hospital to pursue writing full-time.

When not writing, he prefers to be on his boat on the Pamlico River, or traveling to unique destinations to study first hand the locals he may want to include in future writing projects. He and his wife recently traveled through Alaska during the winter months, and cruised the coast during the summer. They have traveled across China, spent a week on a riverboat cruising the upper Amazon in Eastern Peru, and climbed Wayna Picchu, the mysterious 9,000' mountain featured in the amazing photographs of the Inca ruins at Macchu Picchu.

Richard and his wife, Jan, live on Blount's Creek along the Pamlico River in Eastern NC. His wife continues to manage their restaurant in Greenville while he writes full time and assists her in the business.