McGriff was born and raised in Coos Bay, Oregon.

His work has appeared in Slate, Field, AGNI,[1] The Believer, Missouri Review,[2] and Poetry.

McGriff's book Home Burial (Copper Canyon Press, 2012) chronicles the dissolution of a people and their landscape - the coastal Pacific Northwest.

His most recent book of poetry, Early Hour, is a book length sequence inspired by German Expressionist Karl Hofer's 1935 painting (Fruhe Stunde[4]) of the same name.

McGriff currently teaches creative writing[5] at the University of Idaho.