Armed with his B.A. in English, Jim Beggs began his career teaching (naturally) mathematics at one high school in Atlanta, while coaching girls' gymnastics at another. The experience drove him to graduate school. He earned his M.A. at Clemson (SC) University, taught for three years at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and six years at Tennessee Technological University. While teaching full-time at Tennessee Tech in 1987, he began his doctoral studies (naturally, one hundred miles away, at the University of Tennessee), paying little heed to the warnings that his coursework, exams, and dissertation must be completed by the summer of 1995; after all, 1995 was EIGHT years away. He completed his doctoral studies (naturally) in 1995. Three-quarters of his coursework was in American literature, so (of course) he wrote his dissertation on the English poet Henry Reed. (Reed did spend parts of 1965, 1966, and 1967 at the University of Washington.) Beggs earned tenure at Tennessee Tech, so (naturally) he decided it was time to move on to Modesto, California.

In Modesto, he drives his three children around town. In between trips, he frequently stops at Modesto Junior College to teach classes in composition, poetry, and English and American literature. His scholarly interests include war poetry, creativity, humor writing, the fiction of T. Coraghessan Boyle, and sport literature.