Photo credits: Left: John Calvin, Right: Sky Ung

Hi there!

My name is Joe Bruner and I am currently a senior at the University of Redlands in Redlands, CA. I am a Creative Writing major, with a (to be declared) minor in Gender Studies. At the University, I am a member of Rangi Ya Giza, an African-culture based brotherhood as well as Student Director of the Honors Program for the 2015-2016 school year.

A little bit about me: I have been writing since about the age of 5, and have known that I will be a writer since the age 11, when I fell in love with the Redwall series. All throughout elementary school I was constantly writing little short stories, most of which I can’t remember at this point. In middle school and junior high school, I made my first attempt at a novel. The summer after graduating high school, I made an attempt at a second novel. Now I have worked on a third novel, which is the second time I have finished a complete draft. I intend to work with this latest project, On Your Way Out, until it is published.

A second passion of mine is camping. I’ve been in Scouts since the first grade. I started out as a Tiger Cub in 2000, and made it all the way to the very top, earning the Eagle Scout Rank in 2010. I’ve been part of the Boy Scouts specifically since the starting age of 11, where you learn as a scout to take charge of your own camping. I’ve gone kayaking down the Wisconsin River and hiking across the Rocky Mountains, NM; Porcupine Mountains in the Upper Peninsula MI; and the Kettle Moraines, WI. I’ve played around in the woods up in WI, and biked from my hometown outside Chicago to the Great Lakes Naval Training Base.

And now that I’ve moved out to college in California, my role with the BSA has diminished and so I’ve joined our school’s Outdoor Programs.  I am now a University Outdoor Programs Trip Leader. My first semester, as a participant, I explored the High Sierras and the Southern Sierras, both part of the Sierra Nevada mountain range. I went to Catalina Island to go SCUBA diving, and have enjoyed day and night hikes multiple times in the nearby mountain town, Idyllwild, which is the destination for my first First Year Journey (FYJ) as a Trip Leader. Since then I’ve spent several sub-freezing nights in the Joshua Tree National Park, lounging around Santa Monica beach, leading service trips to Bearpaw Reserve (property owned by the Wildlands Conservancy near Forest Falls, CA), and my centerpiece trip so far, Death Valley. Spring Break of Junior year, I led a trip to Big Sur, CA.

That’s a taste of what I’ve done and where I’ve been, and I hope that if you’re interested, you will choose to follow my website to see what else being an adventuring writer in Southern California (and beyond) involves.

Yours very truly,

Joe