Kaysie Ellingson grew up in Moreno Valley, a town that is situated about one to two hours from every primary location in Southern California. She attended Concordia University in Irvine, where she majored in English with a creative writing minor. While attending Concordia, she joined the University's newspaper editing team and enjoyed writing and editing for their political, art, sports and international sections. After graduating in 2010, she traveled to Kazakhstan, where she served as a Peace Corps Volunteer, working as an English teacher. While overseas she maintained a blog and had a non-fiction piece published in the Missouri Writing Project telling the story of her young student's death. Her service was cut short as a result of a suspension of the program, which in turn enabled her to fully prepare for life at Annenberg. While attending Annenberg she hopes to write for the surrounding community of Los Angeles. Her main goal in journalism is to cover international stories and one day return to the country she left to report for Central Asia. You can follow Kaysie on Twitter at @kaysieellingson