Who I Am

Hi.

I’m Virgil Freier, an 18-year-old high school senior from Wisconsin as well as a published poet, aspiring novelist, programmer, and multidisciplinary creator. All at once. Because I don’t like to be one thing at a time. The messy, unbounded reality is better.

After high school, I’m headed to UW-Madison to study computer science and English… which are two fields that probably make me seem like an oxymoron, which I am, but it’s more complicated than that. Because both, to me, are about creating something alive. That’s what I find most exciting about them and exactly what I’ve found exciting since I was in 5th grade and didn’t know the name for that excitement yet. (It’s called “passion.”) (Or maybe “obsession.”)

But I’m interested in many other things besides those two. Psychology. Philosophy. Sociology. Personality typology. Subliminals. Music, singing, choir. Even anime and video games.

I’m also writing a novel called To Live with a Broken Wing, submitting my writing to journals and contests constantly, and taking four AP classes simultaneously which is either admirable or some sort of self-inflicted curse. Probably both.

What ties all my interests together is my persistent obsession with things that mean something and feel distinctive. That’s broad, obviously, but it’s supposed to be. Things that are haunted with their own personal meaning. Things that are usually a little difficult to classify. I like when things move in a few directions at once: literary, technical, that line where they blend together.

Because the point isn’t to be simple.

The point is for it to bleed off the page.