Nelson Ball was born in Clinton, Ontario, and raised in southwestern Ontario. He was active as a poet, editor, and small press publisher in the 1960s and 1970s. Since 1972 he has been an antiquarian bookseller specializing in Canadian literature. He edited Frank Harrington's Kristmiss Book, published by The Mercury Press in 1993, and is the author of three Mercury poetry books, At the Edge of the Frog Pond, Almost Spring, and The Concrete Air. Ball resides in Paris, Ontario, where the Nith and Grand Rivers converge.