Ira Sukrungruang is a Thai American writer born in 1976 in Oak Lawn, Illinois, a suburb just south of Chicago. He spent most of his childhood eating at McDonalds, playing Nintendo, watching kung fu movies, and writing horrendous unrequited love stories.
In 1994, by some miracle, Ira graduated from Oak Lawn Community High School and was accepted to Southern Illinois University Carbondale, where he spent the next five years jumping from major to major before choosing the writer's path. During this time, he was an undergraduate intern at Crab Orchard Review, an experience that taught him the ins and outs of literary magazine publishing.
In 1999, he wrote his way into graduate school at The Ohio State University where he received an MFA in creative nonfiction. He co-edited, with his good friend Donna Jarrell, What Are You Looking At? The First Fat Fiction Anthology and Scoot Over, Skinny: The Fat Nonfiction Anthology. His essays, stories and poems have appeared in such magazines as North American Review, The Sun, and Creative Nonfiction. He is also the author of The Melting Season, Southside Buddhist, Talk Thai: The Adventures of Buddhist Boy, and the poetry collection, In Thailand It is Night. Now he edits Sweet: A Literary Confection (www.sweetlit.com).
He taught creative nonfiction at SUNY Oswego for six years (Go Lakers!), and now teaches in the MFA program at University of South Florida (Go Bulls!). In between grading papers, he makes frequent trips to McDonalds, plays Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii, and watches reruns of West Wing. Admittedly, since moving to a warmer climate, he is now a little addicted to disc golf.
To learn more about him, visit his website at: www.buddhistboy.com.
