Potter was born in
Cleveland, Ohio in 1960. He attended St. John's Lutheran School,
Gilmour Academy, and the Friends School in Cleveland (later the
School on Magnolia). In 1979, he founded the Black Snake record label, on which he released two albums of his own solo guitar compositions, as well as a 45 rpm single of a bluegrass version of
Devo's "
Mongoloid" by the
Hotfoot Quartet. He later attended
Goddard College and the
Evergreen State College; he earned his Ph.D. in
English Literature from
Brown University in 1991. He lives in
Providence, Rhode Island. He is a professor at Rhode Island College in Providence, Rhode Island. He has developed courses in English on several topics, including literature in Victorian England. He has posted material on that era, about an early detective and his representation in
Bleak House, a novel by Charles Dickens. ==Books==