Ryan was born Pierre Thomas yeSewula on a cattle farm in Burkina Faso. Due to the increased violence on the farm, Ryan’s mother moved him and his eighteen siblings to the Belgian Congo where he spent the majority of his childhood and where learned English and began writing.

In 1995 Ryan came to the United States, fleeing even more increasing violence near his home. He brought with him one younger brother and one younger sister. The three spent time in Foster Care where they were forced to change their names. Ryan soon found a more permanent family for his siblings, and at the age of sixteen headed to Southern California where he spent his days as a migrant worker and his nights listening in on lectures at the University of California- Berkley.

In 2002, Ryan earned his GED and took the ACT and SAT soon after. He moved back to Chicago and began his college career at a local Community College. He also began his first essay “The European Colonialism of Northern Africa in the Post-war Years.“

In 2005 Ryan gave up on his formal education and headed back to his home in the Belgian Congo to fulfill his lifelong dream of becoming a Sheppard. After three long years of what turned out to be the biggest mistake of his life, Ryan decided to move back to the States. In 2008 he stumbled across the college town of Champaign-Urbana, where he resides with his herd of Komodo Dragons.