Douglas Coupland was born December 30, 1961 in Baden-Sollingen, on a Canadian Armed Forces base in what was then West Germany. The family moved to West Vancouver in 1965 where Coupland has lived and worked from for most of his life since.

Coupland graduated from Sentinel Secondary School in West Vancouver and received a Diploma in Sculpture from the Emily Carr College of Art and Design in 1984. Since then he has spent several years working in Sapporo, Honolulu, Milan, Tokyo, Toronto; Montreal and Los Angeles.

Coupland is best known as an author. His novels have been published in 27 languages and are sold on all continents. In the year 2000 he decided to resume doing visual art work, something he'd stopped doing in 1986 after he had a show in the Vancouver Art Gallery's Children's Gallery (now gone) and began working as a writer full time.

His main influences, like many artists of his era, are Andy Warhol, James Rosenquist, Jenny Holzer, Jeff Koons and Jeff Wall. His work tends to concentrate on finding ways to connect that part of human life that is highly influenced with mass media and manufacturing, with the organic dimension of being human and alive.