Brendan Curtinrich grew up on the north coast of the Midwest and on his aunt's and uncle’s sheep farm in Upstate New York. He graduated from Hiram College in 2013 with a bachelor’s degree in creative writing and held an editorial internship with Big Stone Publishing in Carbondale, Colorado. After college, Brendan walked over 7,600 miles across the United States, and it is this experience—along with its questions of love, isolation, conservation, and absolutism—that he wishes to explore in his nonfiction work at Iowa State. Brendan has been published in Appalachia and Trail Runner magazine.