Ryan Boudinot is an American writer. He was born on November 6, 1972, in
Saint Croix
Saint Croix; nl, Sint-Kruis; french: link=no, Sainte-Croix; Danish and no, Sankt Croix, Taino: ''Ay Ay'' ( ) is an island in the Caribbean Sea, and a county and constituent district of the United States Virgin Islands (USVI), an unincorpo ...
,
United States Virgin Islands
The United States Virgin Islands,. Also called the ''American Virgin Islands'' and the ''U.S. Virgin Islands''. officially the Virgin Islands of the United States, are a group of Caribbean islands and an unincorporated and organized territory ...
. He went to
Evergreen State College
The Evergreen State College is a public liberal arts college in Olympia, Washington. Founded in 1967, it offers a non-traditional undergraduate curriculum in which students have the option to design their own study towards a degree or follow a p ...
(B.A) and
Bennington College
Bennington College is a private liberal arts college in Bennington, Vermont. Founded in 1932 as a women's college, it became co-educational in 1969. It claims to be the first college to include visual and performing arts as an equal partner in ...
(M.FA). He is the author of several books, including ''The Octopus Rises,'' ''Blueprints of the Afterlife'', ''The Littlest Hitler: Stories'', and ''Misconception''. The latter three have been nominated for the
Washington State Book Award
The Washington State Book Awards is a literary awards program presented annually in recognition of notable books written by Washington authors in the previous year. The program was established in 1967 as the Governor's Writers Awards. Each year, u ...
. ''Blueprints of the Afterlife'' was also nominated for the
Philip K. Dick Award
The Philip K. Dick Award is an American science fiction award given annually at Norwescon and sponsored by the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society and (since 2005) the Philip K. Dick Trust. Named after science fiction writer Philip K. Dick, ...
and has been published in translation in the Czech Republic and Spain. He edited ''Seattle, City of Literature,'' an anthology featuring essays by over thirty writers.
Boudinot was an MFA advisor at
Goddard College
Goddard College is a progressive education private liberal arts low-residency college with three locations in the United States: Plainfield, Vermont; Port Townsend, Washington; and Seattle, Washington. The college offers undergraduate and gra ...
from 2007-2015. Following his departure from the position, he wrote an article on his experience, which received widespread criticism for being overly harsh.
Boudinot worked for Amazon as a customer service representative from 1998–2000, during a period when the company expanded from solely selling books to other product categories. He was part of a team that launched what became the company's marketplace platform. He returned to Amazon from 2004-2007 as an editor on the DVD team, merchandising releases for movie studios including 20th Century Fox and the Criterion Collection. His technology career has also included editorial positions at Netflix, Microsoft, Expedia, and Immersion Networks.
In 2013, Boudinot founded Seattle City of Literature a nonprofit organization that managed Seattle's bid to join the
UNESCO Creative Cities network
The UNESCO Creative Cities Network (UCCN) is a project of UNESCO launched in 2004 to promote cooperation among cities which recognized creativity as a major factor in their urban development. Seattle was named a
UNESCO City of Literature
UNESCO's City of Literature programme is part of the wider Creative Cities Network.
The ''Network'' was launched in 2004, and now has member cities in seven creative fields. The other creative fields are: Crafts and Folk Art, Design, Film, Gas ...