Benyousky, Daniel: Ph.D.
Daniel Benyousky is a first-year Ph.D. student who lived in the western suburbs of Chicago before beginning at Baylor. In the Chicago area he completed an M.A. in Clinical Psychology at Wheaton College, worked as a therapist for two years, and ran a lot. Daniel then completed an M.A. in English literature at the University of Durham in the northeast of England, a place he misses and relives through British television shows. Then he moved back to the Chicago area for two years, where he again worked as a therapist and continued to run a lot. Daniel is generally interested in 20th-century British poetry and specifically in the works of W.H. Auden.
Beavers, Jay: Ph.D.
Born and bred in the great commonwealth of Virginia, Jay earned his B.A. in English and History in 2001 and an M.A. in Renaissance English in 2004. He taught high school English for 7 years before returning to school at Baylor to pursue a Ph.D. in 2011. His current interests are in modern and contemporary American literature with a particular focus on Southern literature. He is still sneaking up on a dissertation topic, but it will probably involve Cormac McCarthy or Flannery O’Connor. In his spare time, Jay enjoys watching movies, playing video games, and making his 13 month old daughter laugh.
Bouchard, Nicole: Ph.D.
Nicole Bouchard grew up on Whidbey Island in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, and though she misses its beaches and greenery, Texas is growing on her as she begins her first year in the PhD program. She graduated from Northwest Nazarene University in 2008 with a BA in English and a BS in Mathematics, an unorthodox but intellectually satisfying combination. After deciding to focus on her love of words over numbers, she now cannot seem to commit to one area of literature, though Victorian poetry appears to be pulling ahead with the draw of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Christina Rossetti, and perhaps Gerard Manley Hopkins
Boyd, Joshua: Ph.D.
Joshua moved to Texas from his native Minnesota where he completed an M.A. at the University of St. Thomas. His research interests include American literature, theological aesthetics, and literary non-fiction. In those moments when he wonders why he decided to pursue a Ph.D. in English, Josh turns to the works of Edwin Muir, Evelyn Waugh, Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, J. F. Powers, Chaim Potok among others.
Carson, Jordan: Ph.D.
Jordan is a second-year Ph.D. student in religion and literature and originally hails from the greater DFW area – Duncanville, if anyone cares. He is trying for a new land-speed world record in degrees from Baylor University. He is beginning his third, separated from the second by a stint at a school in New Jersey. Jordan has never lost a burping contest. He also happens to be a pastor’s husband. He is interested both in how 20th and 21st century novels function discursively in theology and ethics and in the concept of selfhood. He likes books because they look pretty on shelves. Some books are good for reading too, though, especially Graham Greene, Cormac McCarthy, Ernest Hemingway, Toni Morrison, Marilyn Robinson, and a few others.
Clark, David: Ph.D.
David Clark is a fourth year Ph.D. Student, interested in medieval literature, medieval Christianity, and textual criticism. He completed his M.A. at Western Michigan University, and is writing a dissertation on the Morte Darthur, and teaching literature and composition and Baylor. He takes a strong interest in studying abroad; he worked in Maastricht, Spring 2012 and plans to do so again Spring 2013. David and his wife Wendy live in Austin. While the drive to work is long, he finds satisfaction in seeing his wife dance in, and direct, Austin area ballet productions. They both hail from Spokane, Washington and miss the moderate summer temperatures and (very occasionally) the winter snow.
Clark, Sarah: Ph.D.
Sarah spent her childhood in Tennessee and her adulthood (thus far) in Chicago, Minnesota, Georgia, and now Texas. She received her M.A. from Baylor and liked the program so much that she decided to stick around for the Ph.D. Her main area of interest is Irish studies. She also likes studying the relationship between space and identity construction.  Sarah shares the wonderful Waco experience with her husband Carson.
Crawford, Benjamin: M.A.
Ben is from Louisiana and is currently a second year student in the MA program. He enjoys poetry, Doctor Who, and Star Trek.
Creech, Melinda: Ph.D.
Melinda Creech is a second year English/ Religion Ph.D. student focusing on Victorian Studies, particularly Gerard Manley Hopkins. After being a stay at home Mom for 32 years, she returned to school in 2007, earning a MA in Humanities at the University of Houston Clear Lake. She is a native Texan and loves Texas history. She has three children and four grandchildren. Her husband teaches at Truett Seminary. She survived a summer of intensive Latin and is looking forward to a graduate assistantship at the Armstrong Browning Library this fall. She hopes to focus on scholarly editing. She dabbles in it and poetry writing.
Crews, Denise: Ph.D.
I came to Baylor from the Great White North (Michigan), attracted by the idea of a Christian university with a competitive graduate program. I went to Hope College in Holland, Michigan, a beautiful little town on Lake Michigan, where I majored in English and Secondary Education. I went on to teach high school in Maryland, then returned to Michigan to run my own private tutoring business. I decided to pursue an M. A. at nearby Grand Valley State University and rediscovered my love of British and religious-themed literature. I am interested in studying Jane Austen, Oscar Wilde, Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, and Dorothy Sayers. I’m also interested in film and pop culture. I look forward to pursuing these and finding new interests through my coursework at Baylor.
De Smith, Rachel: Ph.D.
Rachel De Smith is originally from Sioux Center, IA; she completed her B.A. in English from Dordt College (same location) in 2009. Smitten by the idea of remaining in school, she then spent two years at Creighton University in Omaha, NE, working on an M.A. in English. Most people might at this point be ready to leave behind late nights, long papers, and being in debt, but Rachel’s love of reading and study won out and brought her to Baylor (fall 2011). Her particular interests are early modern British literature, especially Shakespeare; in a confluence of personal and professional interest, she’s also interested in the intersection of music, worship, and literature. When not studying, she attempts to stay cool in the dramatic Texan climate, drives a bright yellow car, and cherishes a certain passion for the fantasy novels that she devoured as a youngster.
Fenton, Lindsay: Ph.D.
Lindsay is a first year Ph.D. student from Fresno, California. She graduated from UCLA with a major in English and a minor in Middle Eastern and North African Studies. After graduating, she taught English as a foreign language and middle-school language arts in the United Arab Emirates. (She loves and misses the Emirates!) She intends to pursue the Literature and Religion concentration within the English program and to focus on the Victorian novel. Lindsay is very grateful and glad to be studying at Baylor!
Fountain, Marianna: M.A.
Born and raised in Mississippi, Marianna graduated with a B.A. in English Literature from Mississippi College in 2012. A proud product of the hospitality state, Marianna also dwelled in London and Bangkok before making Waco her home. She relishes unearthing beauty in everything, which makes committing to a refined focus of study a good challenge. Especially interested in the connection between religion and literature, Marianna has an extraordinary fondness for T.S. Eliot, Flannery O’Connor, James Joyce, ancient Greek playwrights, and whatever she is reading at the moment. When she is not reading, Marianna enjoys stress baking, garage saling, tea drinking, and ceili-ing. She has unofficially adopted the surprisingly numerous woodland creatures that live beside her apartment and has dubbed her new rabbit friend Clive Staples, or Jack for short.
Jarrell, Virginia: Ph.D.
Virginia is a fifth year Ph.D. student from Ft. Worth, Texas. She earned a B.A. in Letters from the University of Oklahoma in 2006. For many years she dreamed of being a lawyer, but at the last minute decided she wanted a career that would allow her to keep her soul. She decided to pursue an advanced degree in English literature, her first and greatest love. Virginia’s research interests mostly center on the Victorian period. She especially loves the work of William Makepeace Thackeray, Charles Dickens, and George Meredith. She also has a deep and abiding love for the 18th century satirists, especially Fielding, Swift, and Sterne. She wonders if these two interests can combine into an M.A. thesis. (Although, she also loves the work of Victorian women writers like Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot, and Elizabeth Gaskell). In her free time she enjoys spending time with friends, baking, and making silly faces to earn a laugh from her adorable nieces Abigail, Hannah, and Olivia.
Johnson, Lois: Ph.D.
As a first year Ph.D. student in the Literature and Religion Program, Lois is interested in the creative intersection of the human imagination and the Divine – a theology of art, so to speak – and specifically how that intersection is manifest in Post-Colonial Literature such as Magical Realism. Questions that arise from this interest include, but are not limited to, what responsibilities do human artists have to their creations? What creative responsibilities belong to humans as creatures made in the image of a creative God? In what way is the collective creation of human culture analogous to art? Who is responsible for culture-as-collective-art? A graduate of Baylor University’s undergraduate program with a Masters from Aquinas College and several just-for-fun classes at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Lois taught Freshman Composition, Argument and Persuasion, and Public Speaking for seven years at Davenport University, also in Grand Rapids. When she is not busy studying, she is painting her house various bright and occasionally hideous colors, riding her Green Lantern bicycle around campus, and taking really, really short walks in the Texas heat with her lovely, long-haired Maine Coon, Sir Basil the Foxtail, also known as Basil Spiderbane.
Kilpatrick, Nathan: Ph.D.
Nathan Kilpatrick is surprised at the speed with which he became acclimated to Waco, TX. Originally from the blessed ocean in Oxnard, California, he graduated from Azusa Pacific University in 2006 with a double major in English and Theology. Though he took two years off to prepare for grad school, he decided that the world of paperwork is no place for him! He is now happily in the Ph.D. program in religion and literature here at Baylor, because he refuses to give up the perhaps naive idea that books are true, good, and beautiful. In theory, he’s working on researching Vatican 2’s effect on the way Catholics in America tell stories, but more probably he’s bossing any number of people around– his students, his colleagues, or his cat.
Kloosterman, John: Ph.D.
John Kloosterman hails from the city of Kalamazoo in Michigan, and the college of Grove City College in Pennsylvania. He is now in his second year of graduate study at Baylor and enjoying graduate life. A medievalist looking into Geoffrey of Monmouth’s “Kings of Britain,” John also maintains a firm interest in the sci-fi and fantasy genres, including versions depicted in graphic novels. As a hobby, John also enjoys to doodle pictures in the margins of his notes and sketch out rough story ideas on the back of his worksheets.
Larson, Jeremy: PhD.
I lived in eastern Pennsylvania for 16 years before moving to South Carolina, where I met my future wife (Kara) at Bob Jones University in Greenville. I earned a B.A. in creative writing and an M.A. in English. Kara and I moved to Charleston so she could begin Physician Assistant school at the Medical University of South Carolina. I taught English and Bible at various levels (middle school through college) for six years. Our daughter Kate was born in 2011. We moved to Texas when Kara got a job with a Scott & White clinic in Gatesville. I am lacking in both focus and concentration, and you may interpret that however you’d like. I enjoy soccer and Cheez-Its, among other things.
Leatham, Jeremy: Ph.D.
Growing up in Carson City, Nevada, I learned from well-meaning teachers that it was in Virginia City, just 15 miles from my home, where Samuel Clemens found his pen name. A probable fabrication intended to bring some clout to northern Nevada was all it took to convert me to the ranks of Mark Twain admirers. I guess the fact that he mastered American humor didn’t hurt either. And since Twain was so fond of Utah, I received my B.A. and M.A. in English from Brigham Young University. As a Ph.D. student, I want to examine the residual impacts of early American Calvinism on late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century American writers and still somehow manage to spend plenty of time with my wife and four children, Talmage, Tennyson, London, and Emerson. (Twain and Clemens didn’t seem to fit. I’m holding out for Langhorne.)
Marshall, Adam: Ph.D.
Adam is originally from Canton, OH. He’s very proud of his Midwestern roots, and often finds himself scratching his head at the strange and seemingly esoteric ways of the indigenous Texan population of Waco. However, despite initial misgivings about moving to a region lacking in such unassuming comforts as Fall weather, Amish cooking, or hills, Adam has found Waco in general (and Baylor University in particular) to be a welcoming, hospitable sort of place to call “home.†His literary interests are eclectic, although his first and longest love is for anything that has a medieval flavor to it – from Beowulf to The Canterbury Tales to Le Morte D’arthur to The Lord of the Rings. He is also interested in the intersection between literature and the pastorate, whether it’s pastors who write (Donne, Herbert, MacDonald, etc.) or books about pastors (The Scarlet Letter, Gilead, many of the stories by Flannery O’Conner, etc.). He’s scheduled to complete his M.A. course of study in December of 2012, after which he will be seen roaming the halls of the Carroll Science building, probably fretting about something related to his pursuit of a doctoral degree.
McCain, Devin: M.A.
Writer. Tutor. Teacher. Traveler. Bibliophile. Avid gamer. Sometime actor. Unabashed geek. Aspiring professor of English. Fan of Margaret Atwood, Orson Scott Card, George R. R. Martin, Daniel Quinn, and John Steinbeck. Always willing to regale a captive audience with tales of my time overseas or discussions of complex ideas, and very entertaining after downing a few drinks.
McCarty, Jason: Ph.D.
Jason was born and raised in San Diego, but so far has refused to grow up. His academic interests are diverse (he holds four previous degrees, in three different disciplines), but he promises that this is the semester when he’ll finally commit to one century (and one continent) or another. In the meantime, he enjoys Elizabethan drama, the work of Gilbert and Sullivan, and Lovecraftian fiction. He firmly believes that genre literature deserves a fair chance in the academy, and will occasionally try to prove it in a seminar paper. He is married, has a daughter with a seemingly unpronounceable Gaelic name, and listens to 80s metal when driving (alone). He is also still open to the possibility that the ABL is haunted.
Milburn, Michael: Ph.D.
Michael Milburn is a fourth-year Ph.D. student from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He graduated summa cum laude from Franciscan University of Steubenville and studied French at l’Institut Catholique de Toulouse. A Presidential Scholar, Michael’s interests can be described in terms of literary movements: Romanticism and the Inklings, genres: myth and criticism, and theoretical frameworks: New Aestheticism and Popular Culture Studies. He received the Alexei Kondratiev Award for Best Student Presentation at an annual meeting of the Mythopoeic Society, and his work has been published in Tolkien Studies and Mythlore. Michael serves as Vice President of EGSA, and he teaches ENG 1304: “Thinking, Writing, and Research.†He can often be found working at his desk in CS 413. Ask him about Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Catholicism, and/or Pop-Tarts.
Moore, Cameron: Ph.D.
After a week’s worth of job training backing in the Utah desert with troubled teens, Cameron decided that there simply wouldn’t be enough time to read at Red Cliff Ascent’s wilderness therapy program, so he came to Baylor instead. He had graduated from Spring Arbor University in Michigan with a B.A. in English Literature and a very large love for the very large person of G.K. Chesterton; thus, the Ph.D. in Religion and Lit seemed tailored to fit. Currently, he is working as a Graduate Assistant at the Writing Center and reading lots of Sigrid Undset. His other interests include Wendell Berry, 20th cent. Catholic authors, the assumptions inherent in technology, and splitting wood.
Morrow, Dustin: Ph.D.
Dustin is a native Texan, but he “grew up†in the Mississippi Delta, serving two years as a Teach For America Corps Member. Dustin believes that all students can learn and want to learn when given the opportunity. Dustin also believes that reading and writing are contemplative practices essential to a meaningful relationship with the world. Before graduate school, Dustin served as a senior advisor for the National Center on Education and the Economy where he was responsible for comprehensive reforms in the 40 lowest performing schools in New Mexico. Dustin’s research includes multi-cultural and multi-ethnic studies, women’s issues in the contemporary American novel, multi-modal composition, and American roots music. Dustin loves the Red Sox, Van Morrison, and sitting in his yard contemplating the infinite struggle of St. Augustine.
Mudd, Juliana: M.A.
Juliana Mudd is an MA student from New Hampshire, to whom being in Texas means not so much adjusting to the heat as it does missing another beautiful New England autumn – though, admittedly, sacrificing two such autumns seems a fair trade for a master’s degree from Baylor. She graduated in May 2011 from Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio with a BA in English and psychology, and spent the year after that working retail, reading for pleasure, and attempting to perfect her application to Baylor. She has yet to narrow her interest in all of British literature from the Renaissance to the twentieth century into a topic that could be more effectively encompassed by a master’s thesis, but something from the Romantic period is a strong possibility. When not struggling to understand key essays in literary theory, Juliana enjoys movies, learning more about psychology, and singing from time to time.
Noble, Alan: Ph.D.
Alan Noble received his M.A. in English from California State University, Bakersfield in 2007. His master’s thesis was on Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian. For two years Alan taught composition at Antelope Valley College in his home town of Lancaster, California. His area of specialty is 20th Century American Literature, and is currently writing his dissertation with Dr. Luke Ferretter on manifestations of transcendence in the works of Fitzgerald, Carson McCullers, Salinger, and McCarthy. When not teaching or dissertating, Alan enjoys life with his family and is Managing Editor of Christ and Pop Culture on Patheos.com.
Norman, Ryan: Ph.D.
Ryan is originally from Cleveland, Ohio, and most recently from Wheeling, West Virginia. He attended Wheeling Jesuit University for undergrad, where he explored English, philosophy, and music. After a year spent working and ruminating, not sure which of his passions to pursue, Ryan abstractualized that literature probably is, after all, just some kind of mediation of symphony and ontology, so that works for him. Now at Baylor, people sometimes ask him to describe his scholarly interests. Usually, Ryan’s affinities lie with the moderns and postmoderns and literary theory. His most intimate experiences with books have come at the hands of Douglas Coupland, Dave Eggers, and David Foster Wallace. That was meant figuratively. Film-wise, Woody Allen and David Lynch inform many of Ryan’s choices; he enjoys how similar they are.
Ooms, Julie: Ph.D.
Julie Ooms (“ohms,” not “oooooooms,” please) grew up in the south suburbs of Chicago and graduated from Dordt College in Sioux Center, IA in 2008. Â After a brief stint as a TV news producer in South Dakota, she entered Baylor’s graduate program in the Fall of that year. Â She has spent the past three years trying to figure out a dissertation topic and trying to stay out of the Texas heat as much as possible. Â She is particularly interested in literature about war, especially that of the American 20th century, and continues to make valiant attempts to narrow down that interest into a dissertation. Â Her other interests are science fiction, comic books, cartoons, trying to prove to the world the existence of Nice Calvinists, and her cat, Book, who has fluffy white hair just like his Firefly namesake.
Parker, Courtney Bailey: Ph.D.
Originally from Georgia, Courtney and her husband B.J.(a PhD student in Religion) love calling Waco home. While Courtney’s major area is the English Renaissance, the Mister gets his kicks from dead languages like biblical Hebrew, Ugaritic, and a smattering of other cave drawings that Courtney refers to as “slashes and dashes.” They have been married two years. In their vast amounts of free time, they enjoy bird-watching, coffee-drinking, and motorcycle-riding. They have two dogs pretentiously named Serepha (Serah) and Petrarch (Petey).
Pattison, Kalani: Ph.D.
Kalani Pattison graduated from high school in Indonesia and attended university at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego, where she majored in Literature and could see the ocean from her dorm room for two of her four years there. Her interests are varied and scattered — she likes children and young adult literature, seventeenth century poetry, short stories from almost all periods of American Literature, old detective stories, and random other books that are seemingly unconnected. She is another one of those people who cannot remember a time when she didn’t know the stories in The Chronicles of Narnia, and loves traveling, having been to most states (including Hawaii and Alaska), Indonesia, the Philippines, China, South Africa, Northern Ireland, and London (for about 9 hours). She also likes to listen to other people talk about their own travels. She loves teaching 1302 and 1304, and also enjoys talking about teaching.
Pierce, Ingrid: M.A.
Ingrid Pierce hails from the bountiful Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. After four years teaching literature and theology at a classical school, she looks forward to becoming a student again. Pursuing an M.A. in English, she plans to concentrate on medieval and renaissance literature with a theological aporach. Ingrid also admires the writings of agrarian Wendell Berry and dreams of following in his footsteps as a poet-farmer. She discovered a passion for music about the same time she learned how to read, and now enjoys playing the violin in many settings, from orchestras to string quartets to front-porch jam sessions.
Pietka, Rachel: Ph.D.
Rachel Pietka grew up in Michigan and completed her B.A. at Azusa Pacific University and M.A. at Chapman University. She is in her second year of the Ph.D. program at Baylor University. She is interested in American literature, women writers, and autobiographical narratives.
Pyle, Christine: Ph.D.
Christine Pyle grew up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and attended LSU, where she fell in love with the idea of a university. She graduated with degrees in English and French, after completing a senior thesis about self-examination in New England Puritan literature. Hankering for a year of travel and work, she moved to Wilmington, Delaware, to manage academic programs for the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. Now eager to again delve into books, Christine intends to focus her Ph.D. studies on British and American seventeenth-century religious poetry. She is also fascinated by an interdisciplinary conversation about the nature and purpose of higher education. Christine enjoys adventures, Cajun food, handwritten letters, and all things Francophone.
Rasmussen, Andrew: Ph.D.
Andrew grew up in the woods of North Carolina wanting to be King Arthur, before moving to the Jersey Shore and to pretend he was Bruce Springsteen. After playing in rock bands throughout high school and college, he returned to academia in order to pursue his first love: knights. He adores The Faerie Queene, l’Morte D’Arthur, and anything by Sir Philip Sidney. Andrew also enjoys Kelly Sue DeConnick, Wordsworth, Neil Gaiman, Ed Brubaker, Brian Michael Bendis, and Charles Williams. He misses the ocean, but looks forward to continuing his studies at Baylor and punching holes in the sky.
Schaefer, Eric: Ph.D.
Eric has a B.A. in Sociology from the University of Illinois and an M.A. in English from Baylor, where he completed his thesis on contemporary Irish writer William Trevor. Eric enjoys teaching freshmen English students and is pursuing a Ph.D. His current research interests include Twentieth-Century American writers, particularly Mark Twain, Edith Wharton, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and Katherine Anne Porter. For relaxation Eric enjoys playing golf, watching movies, and listening to music.
Schroeder, Amy: M.A.
As a child, Amy used to like books without pictures better than children’s books because then she could “read” them aloud, making up her own stories without any restrictions. Her love of literature has been growing ever since. Amy grew up in Arvada, Colorado (right outside of Denver) and attended Whitworth University in Spokane, Washington. At Whitworth Amy double majored in English Lit and Theology and minored in Philosophy. This past year Amy taught ESL and a few literature courses in the International College of Payap University in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Although being abroad greatly expanded her horizons, Amy plans on focusing on American Lit in the 20th Century. Lately she enjoys reading contemporary poetry, some of her favorites being Jack Gilbert, Louis Gluck, Wendell Berry, and Wistawa Szymborska.
Seelke, Heidi: PhD
Heidi is a fourth-year Ph.D. student in English literature. She grew up in Duluth, MN, and she earned her B.A. from Bethel University in St. Paul, MN. She earned her M.A. in English literature from Marquette University in Milwaukee, WI. Her research area is 18th century British literature, specifically the relationship between the portrayal of female virtue and the development of the novel. When she is not studying literature, she enjoys camping in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, running half-marathons, and cheering for the Green Bay Packers and all Baylor sports.
Smith, David Smith: Ph.D.
David Smith has led a vagabondian life; who can say whence he comes? Kansas City most recently he called home, but Truman State University in Kirksville, MO favored him with parchments will M.A. and B.A. Despite a wealth of education, Mr. Smith found the professional world untenable and hostile, and overly demanding, as his dismissal from JP Morgan in KC demonstrated. He gratefully returned to the womb of the godess Education wherein he hopes to spend the rest of his days, however long that may prove. Fin.
Williams, Danielle: Ph.D.
Danielle Williams is a fifth-year PhD student from southern California. Though she came to Baylor with plans to work on 20th c. British literature, she was drawn to Rhetoric and Composition after realizing how much she enjoyed teaching and talking about first-year writing. (Seriously! She loves talking about teaching composition. If you have any questions about teaching or what this course of study looks like at Baylor, please contact her.) Danielle’s research interests explore the intersection of computers, composition, and student identity, and she is currently working on a project that examines the civic uses of digital literacy. In her limited spare time, Danielle enjoys playing with kitchen gadgets (as Julia Child once quipped, “every woman should have a blow torchâ€), working out with the W:IPS, and hanging out at the Lazy Bandit Ranch with her husband, Chris, and their two beautiful cats.
Womack, Ryan: M.A.
Ryan is a first-year MA student who needed only one highway to get to Baylor from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. After finishing his BA in English at Oklahoma Baptist University, he took a year off to do a few things. During that time, he worked as an editor for a publishing house, discovered the Internet (it’s very interesting), and lived like a king (three meals a day). Ryan is romantically interested in Flannery O’Connor and thinks she is a decent writer as well. Other interests currently include Hawthorne, Poe, Ralph Ellison, Walker Percy, Wendell Berry, and Ian McEwan. He’s planning to do research in religion and literature, but also race and culture, among other subjects.