Tom Hubbard was born in Kirkcaldy, the grandson of the Kirkcaldy MP, Thomas Hubbard, who famously had to be carried into The Lobby despite severe illness to swing an important division.

After obtaining first class honours (MA, PhD) from Aberdeen University and a Diploma in Librarianship from Strathclyde University, Hubbard worked at the Scottish Poetry Library (1984-92) and as a visiting lecturer at the universities of Grenoble, Connecticut, Budapest , and North Carolina .

From 2000 to 2004, he was Editor of BOSLIT (Bibliography of Scottish Literature in Translation), a research project of Edinburgh University, based at the National Library of Scotland. He is also an Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Scottish Literature, University of Glasgow (2004-2007), an Honorary Fellow in the School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures, University of Edinburgh (2005-2008), and Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (FCLIP) (elected 2006).

His poetry came to the attention of the Scottish reading public after he started to be published regularly by Duncan Glen's Akros Publications. His most recent work of poetry is Peacocks and Squirrels and he has recently completed a first novel, on the life of Marie Bashkirtseff, a Ukrainian artist.