About The Author:
Christen Alannah Malloy (she / her / hers) is a student at the University of Colorado Boulder finishing a degree in Computer Science with a minor in Mathematics. She is a poet, author, programmer, musician, and avid cyclist. She grew up in central Texas in the small rural town of Mumford, TX; as a child, she helped in her family’s historic store, Collier’s General Merchandise, alongside her mother and grandmother, and was homeschooled during middle school while her grandmother underwent chemotherapy.
In 2005, she moved to Burbank, California in between her sophomore and junior years in high school to pursue a career in the movie industry. In 2007, she began studying Graphic Design, Acting, and Music at Pasadena City College before moving back to central Texas in 2010; she began working several jobs before returning to her studies at Blinn Community College in 2015, where she discovered a passion for programming, mathematics and creative writing, which led to her transferring to the University of Colorado Boulder to finish her degree.
During the summer of 2018, while visiting her ancestral family farm, Christen discovered her true self-identity while assembling an album of all of her childhood and family photographs from the last several generations, and began a gender transition to female from being assigned male at birth. Eruption: The Awakening of Self was written as a free study artist book while she was taking Introduction to American Women’s Literature with Amanda Hurtado (PhD student).
Christen is currently working on a second chapbook of poetry entitled Poems from the Pandemic, which is in development and planned to be released in early 2022.
Awards / Publications / Presentations:
- (1st Place) 2021 CU Boulder Poetry Slam
- Pegasus: Song to Mike published in HINDSIGHT 2021 Journal of Undergraduate Literature, CU Boulder
- Life published in TIMBER MFA journal of literature, CU Boulder
- Guest Speaker: Poetry, Self Expression, and Identity, 2021 TRANSforming Gender Conference (TGC), CU Boulder
In 2005, she moved to Burbank, California in between her sophomore and junior years in high school to pursue a career in the movie industry. In 2007, she began studying Graphic Design, Acting, and Music at Pasadena City College before moving back to central Texas in 2010; she began working several jobs before returning to her studies at Blinn Community College in 2015, where she discovered a passion for programming, mathematics and creative writing, which led to her transferring to the University of Colorado Boulder to finish her degree.
During the summer of 2018, while visiting her ancestral family farm, Christen discovered her true self-identity while assembling an album of all of her childhood and family photographs from the last several generations, and began a gender transition to female from being assigned male at birth. Eruption: The Awakening of Self was written as a free study artist book while she was taking Introduction to American Women’s Literature with Amanda Hurtado (PhD student).
Christen is currently working on a second chapbook of poetry entitled Poems from the Pandemic, which is in development and planned to be released in early 2022.
Awards / Publications / Presentations:
- (1st Place) 2021 CU Boulder Poetry Slam
- Pegasus: Song to Mike published in HINDSIGHT 2021 Journal of Undergraduate Literature, CU Boulder
- Life published in TIMBER MFA journal of literature, CU Boulder
- Guest Speaker: Poetry, Self Expression, and Identity, 2021 TRANSforming Gender Conference (TGC), CU Boulder