Siegel graduated from Wheaton College in 1961, and received an MA in writing from Johns Hopkins University and a PhD in English literature from Harvard University. Siegel was a professor at Dartmouth College, Princeton University, and Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany, and directed the graduate creative writing program for 23 years at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where he is currently professor emeritus of English. His poetry has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ingram Merrill Foundation, Poetry, Transatlantic Review, and has been nominated twice for The Pushcart Prize for Poetry. His children's fiction includes the award-winning Whalesong trilogy, which has been translated into seven languages. He currently lives in Maine.

Poetry

• 1973 The Beasts & The Elders
• 1985 In a Pig's Eye
• 2005 The Waters Under the Earth
• 2006 A Pentecost of Finches

Children's Literature

• 1975 A Tale Whose Time Has Come
• 1982 The Kingdom of Wundle
• 1990 Alpha Centauri
• 1991 Whalesong
• 1994 White Whale
• 1994 The Ice at the End of the World