Creativity is my thing

The One More Chance Saga is now available on Amazon. It features Asp, an underdog con artist burned by her family and forced to fall in with a gang to get by. As things get complicated, Asp finds herself unsure of where her life is going, in a relationship she doesn't fully understand, and doing her best to keep up. In later books, we see Asp as a child who grows into her skill as a fiercely independent con artist; Asp getting wrapped up in heroic quests and being pressured to change, and Asp trying to make peace with her complicated past. It's a far-reaching tale that involves redemption, daring, found family relationships, and queer love.   

At Over the DM's Shoulder, I've written consistently on tabletop roleplaying games, mostly Dungeons & Dragons, for over seven years. I address how-to questions about how to play and run games, inspiration for new inclusions in the game, information about my own homebrew world, original one-shots, notes on campaigns played, and more. 

Over the years, I have created a number of from-scratch tabletop games. Some are available on Over the DM's Shoulder, and others I'm still tinkering with the hope to get things in players' hands soon. The most notable is a game I'm calling "A Time and Place," which is a roleplay-focused game involving time travel. Players are dropped into heavily-researched recreations of 1450s Paris, 1750s London, 1870s San Francisco, 1930s Chicago, and 2050s Washington, D.C. I'm very proud of this game and would love to discuss it with other game designers. 

I have been podcasting since the beginning of the wave back in the late 2000s and early 2010s. In those days, I worked at a student radio station and created a number of shows, and I've continued to create new shows since the medium feels so natural to me. Here are a few you may enjoy: 

• Listen Check, one of the first tabletop game podcasts ever (2010). I DMed while my close friends adventured through a rowdy port city and tried to overcome a rogue god who blackmailed them into help they didn't want to give. 
• Does it Matter?, an art analysis show with a close friend in which we address conceptual topics in season one and more broad arguments about art in season two. In season two, my overall argument is an exploration of my Master's thesis on audience participation. 
• Head to Head Games, a games analysis show (board games, video games, and tabletop games) in which my wife and I try to tackle what works and what doesn't in games. We have very different taste, so the episodes are often wild.

I've been crocheting for less than a year but definitely have the bug. I'll be posting pictures of my creations, some of which I've made without using patterns. My crochet gallery will probably update semi-regularly.

I've been a Tarot reader for half my life, and I created a guide to the cards and their meanings which focuses on practical interpretations and especially advice about how to move forward. I feel that the Tarot should be available to anyone and everyone, so I've made this available for free. The guide includes instructions on how to be a Tarot reader, so it's a good place to start whether you're a beginner or more advanced.

I hold a Master's degree in Literature and have written extensively on creative works. My thesis was an examination of art that invites the audience to participate, ranging from choose your own adventure stories and video games to tabletop roleplaying games and performance art pieces. My ultimate argument is that we require a new vocabulary to understand these works, which I provide in my thesis.  Here's a range of essays on masculinity, identity, and conceptual reading from my time in college, including the core argument of my thesis.