André Spears was born and raised in New York City, where he worked for some 25 years as a charter broker and part-owner in the Greek-American shipping business, from which he is now retired. He holds a doctorate in Comparative Literature, and lives in Greenwich Village with his wife, Anne; they are the parents of three sons.

He is the author of the epistolary verse fiction for two voices Letters from Mu (Part I ), which was published as an artist's book in France in 2000 by Voix Editions, with over 50 drawings by the Swiss artist Gilgian Gelzer, and is available through Printed Matter. Excerpts from this work-in-progress appear in First Intensity (#12, Spring 1999) and Pierogi Press (#9, Fall 2002).

Other work includes a collaboration with the French artist Jean-Marc Scanreigh on the artist's books Lost in Space (Editions du Paon-Saint-André, Paris, 2001) and United States (Editions de l'Oiseau qui dit tout, Brussels, 2002).

Academic publications include articles in Comparative Literature ("Evolution in Context: `Deep Time,' Archaeology and the Post-Romantic Paradigm," Fall 1996 ) and The Canadian Review of Comparative Literature ("Warlords of Atlantis: Chasing the Demon of Analogy in the America(s) of Lawrence, Artaud and Olson," 28.2-3, June-September 2001); republished online in OlsonNow).

A review of the Miles Davis exhibit "We Want Miles" at the Cité de la Musique in Paris appears in the online journal Sibila under the rubric "Hotel Kafka."

The author has contributed work to Luis Camnitzer's traveling exhibit The Last Book, and to Fiera Lingue's anthology 100 Thousand Poets for Change.

Translation, a collaboration with photographer Anne Rosén, was published by Voix Editions in 2010, as was the 2011 "matchbook" collaboration Arcadia (Para Walter Benjamin).

The author currently serves on the Board of Directors at Poets House (NYC) and the Gloucester Writers Center (Mass.).