Here’s a photo and short bio I use for publicity and such:
Ian M. Rogers grew up in New Hampshire before studying literature at Bennington College in Vermont and creative writing at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where he learned to write short bios like this one. He has worked as a copy editor, a greenhouse assistant, a school secretary, a grocery clerk, an online test-grader, a housepainter, a gardener, and a teacher of English in Japan.
Or, a longer one if you want to get to know me better:
When I was younger I knew I wanted to have a job where I could be creative, but I didn’t know how to make that happen. I also finished college shortly before the 2008 recession, so I had trouble finding jobs that suited me, especially in rural New Hampshire.
As I talk about on the But I Also Have a Day Job blog, I’ve worked a variety of jobs both out of necessity, and because I had trouble finding a good fit. My first full-time job was in environmental protection, but I’ve also worked as a housepainter, a dairy clerk, a greenhouse assistant, a tutor, a gardener, a hand-lotion salesman, an electronics writer, and an online test-grader.
Mostly, though, I lived and taught in English in Japan, once from 2009-2011 at a private conversation school, and again from 2018-2022 on the JET Program and at Kanagawa University in Yokohama. （日本語が少し分かるけど、あまり苦手です。。。）
All that time, I was also trying to become a writer and figure out what that meant to me. I worked on a novel about Japanese life for a long time that eventually became Eikaiwa Bums, and completed a two-year creative writing master’s at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Grad school opened a lot of doors for me, but was overall a rough, emotionally draining experience, and I wish the atmosphere there had been more positive. (That’s basically what led to MFA Thesis Novel. . .)
In grad school I also picked up my first paid jobs as an academic editor and worked for the University of Nebraska Press, both of which led to more editing jobs down the line. I do mostly freelance editing for a living now, which you can read more about here.
Now I’m back in the US promoting MFA Thesis Novel and working on my awesome new novel project. As a small-press indie writer, I’m looking to get more of my work out there and meet other cool people in all kinds of creative fields, since it’s a big, exciting world out there.
If you want to support my work, check out MFA Thesis Novel, sign up for my email list, or follow me on social media—I try to post genuinely interesting stuff.
Stay classy, everybody, and don’t forget to smile.
Photo credit: Kaede Tsuji, Toyama, Japan.
