Ryan graduated from Macalester College, a liberal arts school with a focus on international engagement, magna cum laude in 2010 and was awarded the Wendy Parrish Poetry Award. He subsequently moved to New York City where he studied poetry at New York University’s Creative Writing Program, earning a Masters in Fine Arts in 2015. In addition to working for literary journals and nonprofit publishers, he spent three years at the Academy of American Poets, the United States’ largest member-supported poetry nonprofit, where he was the Development, Membership, and Communications Associate. In 2018, he was awarded a Fulbright fellowship to write a book of creative nonfiction. He has had over 60 poems published in literary journals, has a chapbook forthcoming, and his work is currently being translated into Latvian, the language of his grandparents.
Ryan has had various teaching experiences: leading creative writing workshops at the undergraduate and graduate levels, coaching high schoolers on college application essays, individualized tutoring, and leading test prep courses for the SAT and GRE. As a student himself, he scored a perfect 1600 on the SAT.
In his free time, Ryan tries to stay active and enjoys playing volleyball, swimming, or even just going for a walk and listening to his new favorite podcast or audiobook. Even though he loves arts and culture, his favorite museum is the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, where he can spend hours with the dinosaurs.
SAT, High School
English