Born the son of an engineer and a social worker, Jon Sealy spent his childhood in upstate South Carolina ruminating on the complexities of the mechanical world and the intricacies of human interaction, reaching serious though perhaps feeble-minded conclusions about existential responsibility and naturalistic determinism.

Like shooting a pebble from a slingshot, fate pulled Jon down to the College of Charleston for long enough to earn a degree in English and to meet the woman of his dreams before launching him over the Appalachians to the icy and windswept Midwest.  Fortunately, Jon landed in the warm pocket that is Purdue’s MFA program, where for three years he tooled about town in his Ford pickup and dapper green fedora, listening to George Jones and pining for his lost ladylove, who had found herself pursuing graduate studies in Richmond, Va.

In an effort to stave off the high lonesome, he buried himself in his work as a writer, as a composition and creative writing instructor, and as a worker bee for Sycamore Review (eventually serving as the magazine’s fiction editor for the 2007-2008 academic year).  He also adopted a dog, Diego, who – despite eating Jon’s dapper green fedora – reminded Jon of important lessons about fate and chance and the meaning of life.

After completing his MFA at Purdue, Jon packed up his Ford and rocketed eastward with Diego to Richmond, where he reunited with his ladylove and found work, first as a composition instructor for the University of Richmond, then as a copywriter for the Richmond Times-Dispatch.  Now you can find him freelancing full time, still in Richmond, still in the fedora, scribbling away the ever after.

(Illustration by DC Illustration)