Autobiography Kylie 'drago' McCormick | Interactive

Childhood to High School

Kylie McCormick, born on 7 May 1986 in Connecticut, USA, grew up in Stamford, CT, USA. She began researching dragons in 2000.

Her interest in dragons goes back to her youth, as her oldest toys included two stuffed animals - an old, ragged dragon (missing one eye) and her 'son,' a smaller version.

She started using the pseudonym Black Dragon in 1996 for personal, scifi-themed websites. From 1996 to 2002, she continued making sites featuring fantasy and scifi art and writing, and her pseudonym evolved into drago. Many of these sites retired in 2003.

In 2004, she graduated from Trinity Catholic High School in Stamford, CT, USA, and Kylie continued her education in college.

College & Undergraduate Degree

She attended Mount Holyoke College, the first of the Seven Sister Colleges, double majoring in Computer Science and Theatre Arts.

During college in Theatre, Kylie focused on directing and dramaturgy. She directed six plays in college, including Shakespeare's Macbeth, Jarry's Ubu Roi, and Ensler's The Vagina Monologues. She dramaturged five plays, including Wolfe's The Colored Museum and Churchill's Far Away.

During college in Computer Science, Kylie researched information retrieval and data mining. At Mount Holyoke College, she researched Passage Retrieval, and for four summers she worked as a research assistant at the Arctic Region Supercomputing Center (ARSC) in Fairbanks, AK, USA. She worked on Multisearch, a research package for Grid Information Retrieval.

Career

After graduation, Kylie moved to Lewiston/Auburn, ME, USA to work at The Public Theatre as the Company Manager and to work in various capacities on productions for the 2008/2009 Season. She consulted on web design and programming part-time locally.

She moved to Raleigh, NC, USA in November 2009 to work at Burning Coal Theatre Company. For the 2009/2010 Season, she worked as an Artistic Intern. She took up the webmaster position at the Alliance of Disability Advocates in 2010. For the 2010/2011 Season, she became the Associate Artistic Director at Burning Coal.

Kylie now works at SugarCRM as a Software Engineer, as of July 2011.

Hobbies

Kylie enjoys reading, especially anything written by Robin McKinley, Terry Pratchett, or Craig Shaw Gardner as well as works by Suzan-Lori Parks, Michel Foucault, Amy Tan, Kurt Vonnegut, Maya Angelou, e.e.cummings, and Toni Morrison.

Other pass times include bowling, foreign films, prime numbers, drawing, algorithms, painting, writing, and web work.

In November 2011, Kylie took up Sanshinkai Karate at Karate International.

Faith & Other

After identifying as an agnostic for several years, she returned to the Roman Catholic Faith at age nineteen.

Be the Match - National Bone Marrow Registry

Kylie donates blood and is a registered Bone Marrow Donor. She also plans to participate in Stanford's Brain Donation Program.

Tattoos

At the age of eighteen, Kylie got her first tattoo, a red wyvern with blue undertones, on the back of her left shoulder. She chose the red wyvern because wyverns are, biologically, the most realistic of the dragon types.

At age twenty-one, Kylie has a Yin Yang encircled by an Ouroboros on the back of her right arm. It's purple with yellow undertones. She combined the Ouroboros and Yin Yang because they are two of the most ancient symbols known to humankind, encapsulating transformation, rebirth, conflict, and balance.