S J Jennings spent his formative years in the Forest of Dean, in Gloucestershire and Norwich, a medieval city on the East Coast of England. As a teenager he taught himself computer programming, creating a program to generate Haiku poetry, his first foray into authorship. His early career veered from politics as a member of the National Executive of the National Union of Students (NUS) to outreach work for Hackney Council in some of the poorest sink estates in Europe.

In the early 1990s he made the move into technology, specializing in data analytics. He consulted in Zurich, Switzerland for almost a year, then worked all over Europe. Moving to Canada in 2001 he continued his consulting career with stints in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Chicago, Australia and Hyderabad, India; the latter providing the inspiration for his award-winning novel, Dark Webs of Delusion.

He splits his time between Hawaii and Toronto with his wife, Taliaferro, and their two daughters, with forays to London, Barcelona, and beyond.