A native New Yorker, Baldwin received a PhD in Modern American Poetry from SUNY/Buffalo. He is the critically-acclaimed author of biographies of Martha Graham, William Carlos Williams, Man Ray, Thomas Edison, and Henry Ford; as well as Legends of the Plumed Serpent: Biography of a Mexican God, and The American Revelation. Neil is the retired director of National Book Foundation and Professor Emeritus at Montclair University in New Jersey.