Ryan G. Van Cleave

Ryan Van Cleave (born 1972, in Neenah, Wisconsin) is an American poet, editor, and creative writing teacher. Van Cleave was born as Ryan G Anderson. He changed his name in 2006 in tribute to his long standing World of Warcraft arena team.

He was raised in the Chicago suburbs. He taught creative writing at a number of U.S. universities including Florida State University, the University of Wisconsin–Green Bay, the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and Clemson University. He is the author of nineteen books, including the creative writing textbook Contemporary American Poetry: Behind the Scenes and the poetry collection The Magical Breasts of Britney Spears. His work has been published in The Christian Science Monitor, The Iowa Review, Harvard Review, Mid American Review,The Missouri Review, Puerto del Sol,Ploughshares,The Progressive, Southern Humanities Review,TriQuarterly, and Writer's Digest. In 2006 he co-founded C&R Press (with fellow poet Chad Prevost), a non-profit literary organization that publishes early career poets and offers free community writing workshops throughout the Southeastern US. He currently works as a freelance writer, writing coach, and script doctor in Sarasota, Florida; he also is a Professor of Liberal Arts at Ringling College of Art + Design and a contributing writer for Scene Magazine.

In 2010, he published Unplugged: My Journey into the Dark World of Video Game Addiction, which was the first memoir on video game addiction; subsequently he became a popular speaker on digital media addiction and recovery at schools, conferences, and corporate events. After learning that a chair he sat in at Northern Illinois University had bullet holes in it after Steven Kazmierczak's school shooting on February 14, 2008, Van Cleave wrote a young adult book about gun violence in schools called Unlocked. This book received a Gold Medal in Young Adult Literature from the Florida Book Awards and was named a Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers by the American Library Association. About writing for young audiences, Van Cleave says, "They're the best audience in the world. They read for the pure pleasure of it, and they're at a crucial point in their lives where the right book at the right time can change everything for them."

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