He is the graduate program director and associate professor for the Creative Writing MFA Program at Emerson College. He has also taught at Mount Holyoke College, Columbia University, and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

He received his BA from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He also received an MFA degree from the MFA Program for Poets & Writers at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Whynott is the author of:

• Following the Bloom...Across America with the Migratory Beekeepers (1991)
• Giant Bluefin (1995)
• A Unit of Water, A Unit of Time...Joel White's Last Boat (1999)
• A Country Practice...Scenes from the Veterinary Life (2004)

He has written for The New York Times Book Review, Smithsonian, Discover, Islands, Outside, The Boston Globe Magazine, Reader's Digest, New England Monthly, Orion, and The Massachusetts Review.

Whynott is an eleventh-generation Cape Codder. He now lives near Hanover, New Hampshire.

Whynott's first book took ten years to get published. In the meantime, he tuned pianos to make money.

Douglas Whynott was founder of the Whynott Boogie Trio, a boogie-woogie trio in which he played piano.