Currently, I work the reference supervisor at a medium-sized public library in Tennessee. Basically, this means I look up books all day and help people with their research. I also spend a lot of time writing newspaper articles and doing PR work for the library. Before that, I worked in an independent bookstore where my main duties were...more »

Currently, I work the reference supervisor at a medium-sized public library in Tennessee. Basically, this means I look up books all day and help people with their research. I also spend a lot of time writing newspaper articles and doing PR work for the library. Before that, I worked in an independent bookstore where my main duties were picking up after messy small children, jockeying a cash register, and submitting three sentence reviews to BookSense.

I hold a BA in literature, which has prompted just about everyone I know to ask me at some point "and what are going to do with that?" After a few years, I gave up answering this seriously and just began to tell everyone that I planned on being poor and well-read. It works, eh?

Besides reading and work, I spend too much time playing on my Wii. I like to travel, and have seen most of the US, part of Canada, the interior of Heathrow in London, and a good portion of the Flanders region of Belgium. I listen to a lot of music in of the "lit-rock" persuasion, and the best concert I have ever been to was the Decemeberists at the New Daisy. I also like Feist, Spoon, Arcade Fire, Okkervill River, Belle and Sebastian, Peter Bjorn and John, Sondre Lerche, Sufjan Stevens and some other bands like these.

When I grow up, I want to be an editor. If I could live anywhere in the world, it would be Brussels, Belgium. My favorite artists are Salvador Dali and Georges Seaurat. I will watch just about any movie with Christian Bale in it. I subscribe to too many magazines and buy even more. I like cats. My favorite food is tabouli, my favorite fish is trout, and I drink too much Coca-Cola, but hardly any coffee. I like television shows that were originally broadcast on the BBC and that now find their home on PBS.

I will read just about anything with pages, but in particular literary fantasy, (what many people call) depressing hipster literature, dusty classics, and intriguing (but not too academic) nonfiction. My favorite book is Les Miserables. Authors I like include Neil Gaiman, Dave Eggers, Jasper Fforde, Victor Hugo, Mark Twain, Haruki Murakami, Jodi Picoult, and many others that I either can't remember or can't spell (or both).

It is nice to meet you, too. « less