Sorry for taking a while to respond. Evan and I went camping, and it was a whirlwind of preparations followed by limited cell service. I did jot down a note for you plus sketched out a bio of sorts. See below. Hopefully you can understand my handwriting!

I hope my bio helps you feel more able to write yours! The pandemic did a number on us all… I think there was a brief moment when it seemed like the world would change for the better but instead capitalism and neoliberalism steamrolled us, and we all just ended up a bit broken. I’m reminded of the impact the Great Depression had on your parents; I think future generations will similarly think that we Covid People have our own lifelong oddities from this big thing that happened.

I’d been thinking, by the way, and sorry for not making it clearer, that I would include these introductory emails in the website. Getting ready to read Ulysses is a project of its own in some ways! I’ll redact the heck out of that last email you sent to me, and going forward, feel free to separate your Self-as-Ulysses-Reader from your other selves. Unless you just want to yolo it and trust me to redact as needed.

K.

Education
2005 - Bachelor of Arts (Honours English Program)
2019 - Master of Library and Information Studies

Before the BA - early childhood
- was definitely one of those 'read too late with a flashlight under the covers' kids.
- for many years of my childhood, we either didn't have a television or we had three fuzzy channels via an antenna on the roof—but we did have a Commodore 64 computer that figured large. I may have learned to read so that I could use it?
- read lots of classic kid-lit: Little Women, Little House on the Prairie, Anne of Green Gables, every Arthur Ransome book I could get my hands on.

Before the BA - teen years
- here began a long life of being razzed for "sleeping in" when I was, in fact, reading in bed.
- read a weird number of classic spy novels—Ian Flemming, Len Deighton, John LeCarre—I think because Dad recommended them.
- more of an Anne Bronte girl than an Emily B gal—preferred the Tenant of Wildfell Hall over Wuthering Heights. (But Jane Eyre rules.)
- lots of Jane Austen (fave: Persuasion).
- plus the usual required reading in high school, and really just anything off the shelf at the public library that seemed remotely interesting.

The Honours English years
- memorable courses: American Literature and War, Old English language and history, Beowulf, seminar in Canadian Literature, 18th Century Novels, Shakespeare and Film, Children's Literature, all the Honours seminars, Medieval Studies...
- wrote my thesis on Kevin Crossley-Holland's Arthur trilogy and adaptations of the Arthurian legends for kids.
- very influenced by my English nerd friends to read beyond the required lists. Most notably Graham for getting me into Thomas Pynchon.

 Between the Degrees (aka the Inter-war era)
- tended to be very influence in my reading by the dudes I dates, so I read a lot of the sorts of books read by dudes in their 20s: Don Delillo, Tom Robbins, Richard Brautigan. Less Kerouac than you'd think; my suspicion is that even your average guy recognized Kerouac as too misogynist to recommend to a woman.
- kept reading classics: Bleak House, Middlemarch, Wings of the Dove, A Room with a View.
- a dreamed-of trip across Russia on the Trans-Siberian railway never happened, by my winter of reading Russian history, literature (We, The Master and Margarita, Moscow to the End of the Line, The Queue) and travel writing kicked off a tendency to read along themes, as well as an increased appreciation for travel writing, essays and creative non-fiction, as well as art criticism.
Some faves:
- travel: Down the Nile by Rosemary Mahoney; anything by Eric Newby; Paul Theroux's rail journeys.
- fiction: anything Shirley Jackson; Good Morning Midnight by Jean Rhys; Renata Adler's Speedboat; anything Rachel Cusk.
- essays/ creative non-fic: Rebecca Solnit, Olivia Laing, Maggie Nelson.

Becoming a Librarian
- involved either more reading or less, depending on your view of what a library degree involves.
- outside of my information behaviour theory, management, web design, and instruction courses, I did take a young adult books class and a Popular Reading Material for Adults class.
- from the YA class, Nobody Cries at Bingo by Dawn Dumont (memoir of growing up on a reserve in Saskatchewan in the 70s & 80s) stand out in my mind.
- read lots of Russian science fiction for the Reader's Advisory class.
- also really got into Roxane Gay and Sam Irby in my off-hours.

Recently
- the mix of job hunting, working as a librarian, the pandemic, moving internationally during a pandemic, plus married life plus too much doom-scrolling... I read much less than I used to.
- reading Jay Dolmage's Academic Ableism in 2021 has really shaped my teaching lately.
- likely going to have a big California phase in my reading, and really need to dig more into Sara Ahmed's work.