I am a senior English student graduating soon from Kent State University in Kent, Ohio. I grew up on a small farm in the Cuyahoga Valley tending the animals (llamas, horses, pigs, chickens, goats). I enjoy reading and writing very much. I particularly enjoy postmodern novelists like Thomas Pynchon and David Foster Wallace. My favorite poets are Gary Snyder, Allen Ginsberg, Octavio Paz, and William Pitt Root. For nonfiction I enjoy Native American and Hispanic literature. I am also very interested in scientific journals on zoology and anthropology. I enjoy music. I play guitar and banjo. My favorite artists are Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Beetoven, Jimi Hendrix and Radiohead. I am an avid mountaineer. I have climbed a number of mountains in upstate New York, the Tennessee/North Carolina Smokies, and in the Colorado Rockies where I used to reside. I hope to teach English in foreign countries via Peace Corps or other organizations while continuing my creative writing pursuits on the side