Thurber was born in 1977 in Washington State. His parents moved to an island in the San Juans when he was 6. He began making comics, stories, and music with friends. He moved to New York City in 1996 to attend Cooper Union. Upon graduating, while working at the Met Museum, he began producing minicomics and appearing in anthologies like The Ganzfeld and Kramers Ergot. From 2005-08 he played saxophone in Soiled Mattress and the Springs. Thurber's cassette label, Potlatch I Gather, has released several books on tape. He now performs frequently as Ambergris and in a duo with Brian Belott as Court Stenographer and Young Sherlock Holmes. His comic series 1-800-MICE was the recipient of a 2010 NYFA Fiction Fellowship and in 2011 Picturebox released a collection of the issues. He lives in Brooklyn, teaches, and produces a serialized webcomic called INFOMANIACS, among other things.