M.S. , Human-Computer Interaction Design

M.F.A. , Creative Writing

John Michael Vore has been a writer for over wenty years and a publisher for over ten years.He has written and published five books: two books of poetry and three books of non-fiction. His first short story won honorable mention in the University of Notre Dame's Fiction Contest in 1986.Vore majored in Philosophy at ND. One memorable philosophy moment was asking a very dismissive Allan Bloom where the faculty of reason was located in the brain; the watershed, however, was encountering the ideas and methods of Ludwig Wittgenstein. In American history, Vore was lucky to be in classes taught by Max Lerner and Garry Wills. Some of Vore's most memorable non-academic times were spent "chaperoning" Timothy Leary, Abbie Hoffman, Allen Ginsberg and Ken Kesey around the campus (he loves to tell the story about being head-butted by Ginsberg...).After graduating, Vore worked as a speechwriter for Indiana Governor Robert Orr; was founder and editor of Branches (www.branches.com); was an editor and journalist for Heartland (a Midwest gay and lesbian newspaper); and he freelanced as a copywriter and designer. Awarded a tuition scholarship in 1990, Vore returned to Notre Dame, where he wrote his first book, Tell Me What Home Is Like (Firetrap, 2001). This memoiristic exploration of identity earned him a Masters degree in 1993 (technically an M.F.A.). The book's "frame" is based on a 1962 conference paper by Timothy Leary, Ph.D., called, "How to Change Behavior." TMWHIL also contains Vore's first thoughts about what has sometimes been called "victim cultures" (Vore challenges ideas about "sexual abuse" in The Raft (Firetrap, 2001) and transforms them altogether in Moving into History (Firetrap, 2003)).Vore considers himself a witness to certain uses of power, sometimes when that power was abused.In 1992, Vore also volunteered for the Brown for President campaign in South Bend, Indiana. The exceptional primary results enabled him to be the first openly gay delegate to a national political convention from Indiana. While In New York for DNC '92, Vore reminded Indiana's Democrats that he had more rights in New York City than in Indiana. He asked them to help change that; though loudly applauded, that change is still pending.Vore moved to Chicago in 1993 where he volunteered at Open Hand, the meals-on-wheels program for People With Aids, and was lucky to meet many of the remaining "old guard" g/l/b/t activist community. Three years later he founded Firetrap when he began publishing books by the long-time Chicago columnist, Jon-Henri Damski.Like the late Damski, Vore considers himself a "gay writer, queer thinker."Fourteen Firetrap books and ebooks have been published since 1996. The original domain for the site was sold in 2004; it is now located at firetrappress.com. Vore has been the webmaster for Firetrap (and he apologizes for the current state of the site), as well as the designer for all of Firetrap's productions. He also attempted to gain a patent on his ideas for intelligent ebook software, the Personal Knowledge Index; after two rounds, the patent was abandoned in 2003.Vore moved to Northeast Pennsylvania in 2002 to expand Firetrap into software publishing. While in Harveys Lake, he wrote and released Moving Into History: Therapy for the American Identity in February, 2003--essays about religion, politics and his new approach to psychology.Vore's info-psychology (a term from Leary's later writings), detailed in The Raft: Notes Towards Rules of Order for a Digital Age (Firetrap, 2001), provides a basis for thinking differently about spirituality, self-identity, addictions, sexual abuse and the "psychological correctness" which Vore believes has decimated the American identity.Since 2004, Vore has worked primarily on the theories behind software he hopes will be able to "digitize a personality," the Universal Mentor Synthesizer (UMS). He has made progress on a neurological theory of knowledge "objects," and how the brain learns "difference"--and he has continued to develop a novel way of teac