John Williams' life was similar to that of his character in Stoner. He was an English professor at the University of Denver until he retired in 1985. Like Stoner, he experienced coworker frustrations in the academic world and was devoted to this work, making his novel a reflection of parts of his own life,[16] though in the preface to the novel Williams states that it is entirely "a work of fiction"[7] and bears no resemblance to any people or events he experienced in his time at the University of Missouri.
The life of academic poet J. V. Cunningham also seems to have partially inspired the novel.[17]
