Revel Shinn Atkinson was born in Williamsburg, Virginia in 1985, while his mother was attending law school at the College of William & Mary. After eleven months, once she completed her degree, he moved to New York. It is there—mostly in the town of Greenport—that Revel grew up; however, he did attend the majority of grade school in Denver, Colorado. He also lived in various parts of New York and Texas before entering high school. After graduating from Greenport High School, Revel moved to Los Angeles for a few months to study classics with his father and volunteer at the International Center of Writing and Translation at UC Irvine before moving to Guanajuto, Mexico. In Mexico, Revel studied Spanish and applied to colleges in the United States.
Revel graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 2008, having studied literature, Japanese and visual arts. His interests in literature extended from Russian literature, to Japanese, Chinese, English and, of course, the literary works of Latin America. In regard to art, he studied sculpture under Robin Winters, photography under Joel Sternfeld and also attended the University of Havana in Cuba for a semester. While there he took both academic classes at the main university and a course in classic oil painting at the Instituto Superior de Artes or ISA.
After graduating from college, Revel moved to Vietnam to pursue writing and learn Vietnamese. He lived there for six months and managed to take the time to travel a bit through south-east Asia. The following year, Revel took logic courses in Albuquerque, New Mexico and worked in real estate development in Roswell, New Mexico, always returning to New York for the summertime to work as a bartender in Scrimshaw Restaurant in Greenport, New York and visit with his family. In September of 2010, Revel moved to Armenia, Colombia to assist a long-time friend and schoolmate in the process of having an American-based investment company gain a 50% economic interest in a Colombia coffee roasting company. His aid ranged from work in photography and webdesign to the translation of legal documents and contracts.
It is here in Colombia that Revel currently resides.
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