Argyle Quiñones lives in Oakland, California, having grown up in Silver Spring, Maryland. He is educated in both English Literature and Law. His high school education largely focused on Shaw Brothers movies and Dungeons & Dragons. He considers his writing greatly influenced by García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude; Faulkner's "The Bear"; "House Taken Over" and "The Night Face Up" by Julio Cortázar; "The Hunger Artist" and "The Penal Colony" by Kafka; and Night by Elie Wiesel. Frédéric Chopin is also a huge influence.