The son of poet William Stafford, Kim Stafford received a B.A. in 1971, an M.A. in English in 1973 and a Ph.D. in medieval literature in 1979 from the University of Oregon. Since 1979, he has taught writing at Lewis & Clark College in Portland. He has also taught courses at Willamette University in Salem, at the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology, at the Fishtrap Writers Gathering, and private workshops in Oregon and Italy.

He is the founding director and artist-in-residence at the Northwest Writing Institute and is the literary executor of the William Stafford Archive at Lewis & Clark.

His books include :

• A Thousand Friends of Rain: New & Selected Poems
• Oregon Pilgrimage in Green
• Lochsa Road: A Pilgrim in the West
• Wind on the Waves
• We Got Here Together
• Entering the Grove
• A Gypsy's History of the World
• Places & Stories
• Having Everything Right: Essays of Place
• The Muses Among Us: Eloquent Listening and other Pleasures of the Writer's Craft
• Early Morning: Remembering My Father, William Stafford
• Wheel Made of Wind (a CD of original songs)

Kim Stafford also served as editor or contributor for several books by William Stafford:

• Down in My Heart: Peace Witness in Wartime (Introduction by Kim Stafford)
• Every War Has Two Losers: William Stafford on Peace and War (Introduction by Kim Stafford)
• Even in Quiet Places (Afterword by Kim Stafford)

He was also a contributor to the Multnomah County project When You Were 15, in which "adults from our community share their stories about how an adult made a difference to them when they were fifteen. Several stories from today’s young people prove that they, too, need caring adults. These real life stories show how even a small act of encouragement can make a big difference in a teen’s life."

His work is featured at the Orenco Station on the Rings of Memory Plaza and the Witness Tree Rest.