Greg Rucka was born in San Francisco and raised on the Monterey Peninsula of California, in an area known to the locals as "Steinbeck Country." He first discovered comics at the Nob Hill Market in Salinas, California, where at age 5, he first saw digest-sized black and white reprints of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's work on The Incredible Hulk, which he convinced his mother to buy. He began writing at a young age, and at age 10, he won a county-wide short story contest. He graduated from Vassar College with an A.B. in English. He then enrolled in the University of Southern California's Master of Professional Writing program, graduating with an M.F.A.

Before becoming a professional fiction writer he worked in a number of other occupations, including house painting, restaurant work, emergency medical technician, security guard, technical writer and fight choreographer.

Rucka's writing career began with the Atticus Kodiak series. Kodiak is a bodyguard whose jobs are rarely as uncomplicated as they at first appear. The series to date consists of: Keeper, Finder, Smoker, Shooting at Midnight, Critical Space, Patriot Acts and Walking Dead. These works garnered Rucka much critical acclaim and comparisons to the elite writers of crime/suspense fiction. The "Atticus" novels are notable for their realism and attention to detail, which are partly a product of Rucka's fight training and experience as an EMT. He has written three non-Atticus books: "Fistful of Rain," "A Gentleman's Game" and "Private Wars"; the latter two are tie-ins to his comic book series Queen & Country.

In 1998, Rucka entered the comics industry with his highly praised "Whiteout," published through Oni Press. "Whiteout" focuses on a murder in an Antarctic base. It was followed by a sequel, "Whiteout: Melt."

The majority of Rucka's work throughout the 2000s was for DC Comics, where he was involved with their main trinity of characters: Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. Rucka wrote Batman on a regular basis in the Detective Comics series following the events of "No Man's Land'." He wrote the novelization of the year-long arc. While writing Detective Comics, he created a number of background characters that led to the co-creation of Gotham Central with co-writer Ed Brubaker. From October 2003 to April 2006 he wrote Wonder Woman after having previously written the character in the Wonder Woman: The Hiketeia original graphic novel.

From 2002 to 2004, he did some work for Marvel, including the start of the third volume of Wolverine, Elektra and the mini-series Ultimate Daredevil and Elektra. He has worked for Image Comics.

Rucka wrote the screenplay for the "Crossfire" segment in the direct-to-DVD anime Batman: Gotham Knight, in which Crispus Allen, a character he created, appears. In 2009, Rucka and artist Eddy Barrows took over Action Comics as the title moved its focus from Superman to Kryptonian heroes Nightwing and Flamebird in the aftermath of the "New Krypton" story arc.

At Wondercon 2010 Rucka announced he would part ways with DC Comics to focus on his own projects, in part because of DC's failure to keep him on as writer of Wonder Woman: Earth One as promised. Rucka then wrote The Punisher for Marvel Comics.

Rucka launched the webcomic Lady Sabre and the Pirates of the Ineffable Aether, a steampunk adventure series illustrated by Rick Burchett. New installments appear every Monday and Thursday.

Rucka was featured as a character in the CSI: Crime Scene Investigation comic book miniseries "Dying in the Gutters," as someone who accidentally killed a comics gossip columnist while attempting to kill Joe Quesada over his perceived role in the cancellation of Gotham Central.

Rucka, his wife, author Jen Van Meter, and their two children, live in Portland, Oregon.

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