Born in 1945, John Elsberg studied history at Columbia University and then St. John's College in Cambridge, England under the Kellett Fellowship. While in Cambridge with his wife, Connie Barnard Elsberg, and their son Steve, Elsberg studied English history and taught for the University of Maryland. Upon returning to the United States, Elsberg started working at the U.S. Army Center of Military History in 1975. In the course of his career, Elsberg became the editor-in-chief at the Center, a position he held until his retirement in 2005. Elsberg passed away in 2012.

Elsberg was also a highly regarded poet, reviewer, and editor in the worlds of small press publications and poetry. From 1977 to 1980, Elsberg served as a fiction editor for Gargoyle, until he left to act as the publisher for Bogg. That publication was begun by George Cairncross in England in the 1960s, and Elsberg became editor for the American supplement when it started in 1975. In 1980, Bogg transitioned to an American publication accepting works from the United Kingdom and the North American continent with Elsberg stepping into the role as head editor. Bogg would later also accept works from New Zealand, Australia, and Canada.

Under Elsberg, Bogg Publications was revived and published free-for-postage chapbooks featuring such writers and poets as George Cairncross, Ann Menebroker, Steve Sneyd, Joe Hirst, Ron Androla, Dave Ward, Charles Plymell, Todd Moore, J. Wesley Clark, Joan Payne Kincaid, Wilga Rose, Sheila Martindale, Tina Fulker, John Yamrus, David Check, Dave Wright, Martin Galvin, Derrick Buttress, and Laurel Speer. In addition to his work for Bogg, Elsberg also served as founding editor and advisor for the Delmarva Review from 2007 to 2012 and the online Delaware Poetry Review.

Elsberg wrote and published numerous works of poetry and literary commentary in various journals and small presses, as well as publishing nearly twenty collections of poetry. A few of John Elsberg's publications include Cornwall and Other Poems (1972), Poems by Lyn Lifshin and John Elsberg (1978), Walking, As a Controlled Fall (1980), The Limey and the Yank (1981), Home-Style Cooking on Third Avenue (1982), The Price of Reindeer (1983), Father Poems (1993), Offsets (1994), The Randomness of E (1995), Family Values (1996), Broken Poems for Evita (1997), Sailor (1999), Small Exchanges (1999), and South Jersey Shore: Poems and Brief Sketches (2005). Elsberg also wrote and published Catching the Light: 12 Haiku Sequences (2009) and All This Dark: 24 Tanka Sequences (2012) with Eric Greinke.