He attended Harvard University as an undergraduate, the University of Virginia as a Henry Hoyns Fellow, and Stanford University as a Wallace Stegner Fellow. He is also the recipient of fellowships from the Ruth Lilly Poetry Foundation, the Kentucky Arts Council, and the National Endowment for the Arts. He is the Director of the Creative Writing Program, University of Arkansas. McCombs’ work appeared in The Best American Poetry 1996, The Missouri Review, Poetry, The Kenyon Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and other magazines and journals. McCombs grew up in Munfordville, Kentucky. From 1991 to 2001, he worked as a Park Ranger at Mammoth Cave National Park. He is married to the poet and photographer Carolyn Guinzio.