Born in Boston, James Randall earned his bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees at Boston University. He taught at Bennett College in North Carolina before coming to Emerson in 1963 as an assistant professor in the English Department. In 1967, he founded Emerson's Writing Program. In 1971, he helped found the journal, Ploughshares, edited four of the early issues, and help bring the journal to Emerson College. He was the first chair of the Department of Creative Writing and Literature when it was established in 1981. He retired from Emerson in 1991. Randall also co-founded Pym-Randall Press with his wife, Joanne. The Press was known for publishing young poets, and Randall published then-student Thomas Lux's first chapbook in the '60s.