Tim Staffel (born in 1965 in Kassel) studied at Gießen University's drama department. He has been living as a freelance writer in Berlin since 1993. In 1998 his first novel Terrordrom was published, which Frank Castorf dramatised for the Volksbühne at Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, Berlin in the same year. Since then he has been writing novels, plays and radio plays, many of which he directed himself. Tim Staffel has received a number of grants and awards, among them the Alfred Döblin Grant (1996) and a grant from the Stiftung Niedersachsen (1999).
His film Westerland which had its world premiere in 2012 at Berlinale was released in German cinemas in 2013.