Viva
Green was born in Alexandria, VA and lived the first 9 years of her life in northern
Virginia. She exhibited an early interest in art and books, spending hours at
the coffee table drawing hundreds of pictures and devouring every written
material as soon as she learned to read. She also loved nature and spent long
afternoons in the backyard reading to the trees. In 1991 she moved with her
family to a small town in West Virginia, where she began to develop a talent
for writing, placing multiple times in a state young writer’s competition. Viva experienced a bit of culture
shock moving from a diverse urban landscape to rural WV, where for the first
time she witnessed racial prejudice. Still, for the most part Viva enjoyed
growing up in the beautiful rural surroundings and made life-long friends
there.
Turned off by the pressure in high school to choose a career and
college, Viva took a year off after graduation. The time was spent bonding with her younger
brother and figuring out what to do next. In 2002 she enrolled in a local
liberal arts college and somewhat
on a whim, chose to pursue a degree in photography. She soon found herself in love with
and excelling at the course of study and upon graduation was given a
prestigious academic title. Through the college, Viva was finally able to realize her dream of traveling abroad. A
junior year trip, partly funded by an Art Department scholarship, took her to
London and Paris, and a post-graduation trip found her exploring Peru.
In 2007, Viva decided to return to her roots in northern
Virginia and quickly landed a job as an administrative assistant at an
international broadcast news station in Washington, D.C. One year later she left to live with a
long time friend (turned love) in the Mediterranean city of Tel Aviv, Israel. The she found work with an American promotional materials company and in her spare time wandered the city taking photos and soaking up the foreign culture. Another year passed, and in 2009 Viva and her partner moved together to
Maryland. After a six month search, she was able to find a job at a federal agency working in
communications. In the past few years she has written and photographed for local publications and published several photos in a Jerusalem-based newspaper. She currently lives in Washington,
D.C. and is pursuing an M.S. in Interactive Media.
First of all, I like your style. I had to look really deep to get some criticism.
ReplyDeleteSome approached the bio with a first-person tone, and some with the third person tone. Both are legitimate, but since this is not part of a resume, and you already began with less-than-serious tone ("reading to trees" - that's cute), I think you should continue like that and allow yourself lighter expressions. I assume you will not say in real life that a post-graduation trip "found" you in Peru. You can make it sound more natural, and natural is also more relate-able.
You should change "The" to "There," in "There, she found work..." (last paragraph.)
I think you're right, I could work on keeping the tone more consistent... Thanks!
ReplyDeleteFirst off, I love Maryland.
ReplyDeleteYou did a great job telling your story while being concise. You gave a good amount of information so that the reader could get to know who you are and what makes you tick in three paragraphs, very nice.
I liked that you decided to use third person. I think it helps the reader better visualize what he or she is reading.
I can't say I found much that stuck out to me to constructively critique!
I also liked the "reading to trees" part, very cute.
Viva, you’ve lived a very interesting life! The beginning paragraph is very descriptive and paints a beautiful, playful picture of growing up and the things you are passionate about (writing and photography). You've done this in a concise and interesting way – not cluttered, but clear and thorough.
ReplyDeleteHowever, as the bio sketch moves on, it becomes more focused on the facts, the last paragraph in particular. I realize that you probably struggled with accurately portraying the various location changes and career changes between 2007 and 2009, but these particular details – dates and one year later, another six moth search, etc. - seem to bog down the flow. I am more interested in who you are and what you’ve done than when you did it. Losing some of the distinct/specific chronology would improve the flow of the piece, I believe.
Good point! I did struggle a little with those time line clarifications; maybe they're not even necessary. Thanks.
ReplyDelete