Ryan Iwanaga earned his MFA from the University of Oregon before working toward a PhD in English and Creative Writing at the University of Houston. His poetry was published in Alaska Quarterly Review, Southern Poetry Review, among other publications, He ultimately decided to leave academia and start his career in real estate after his daughter, Keats, was born. Ryan currently lives in San Jose with his wife, Meena, and son, Monroe. His daughter, Keats, now an adult, lives close by and makes her home in the Scotts Valley basin.