Teresa Youngblood is an educator, writer, and researcher living and working in the Arkansas Ozarks. Hailing from the scrub lands and sinkholes of Central Florida, she earned her degrees at the University of Florida and Florida State University in the early aughts before now pursuing a Ph.D. in literacy education at the University of Arkansas. Her research interests lie in the intersection of play, outdoor learning, and literacy, especially the experience of literacy for adolescents. She's a junior high reading teacher for her neighborhood public school.