Monica Valentinelli

Monica Valentinelli
Born Monica Valentinelli
Occupation Freelance writer
Nationality Italian/American
Genre Fantasy, role-playing game, horror, science fiction
Website
www.booksofm.com

Monica Valentinelli is an Italian-American author, essayist, editor, and game developer.[1] She studied at University of Wisconsin–Madison, and holds a B.A. in English with a Creative Writing Emphasis. She started working in the hobby games industry in 2005. She is the author of several short stories, essays, and roleplaying games and is an anthologist as well.

Games

The first RPG company she worked for was Abstract Nova Press, a small press publisher devoted to making games that had a literary influence. She wrote for Nuomenon, a game inspired by Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis, in 2006. Since then she’s contributed to: 'White Wolf, Onyx Path Publishing, Catalyst Game Labs, Wizards of the Coast, Atlas Games, and many others. Late 2012, she was approached by Margaret Weis Productions to work as the developer and lead writer on the Firefly RPG, which was based on the television show by Joss Whedon. Monica worked on the multi-award-winning Firefly RPG corebook and several supplements through 2016. In 2015 she was approached by Shadowrun developer Jason M. Hardy to create a new setting based on the fae. This setting was presented in Court of Shadows and debuted at Gen Con in 2016. Following her departure from MWP, Onyx Path Publishing announced that Monica is the lead developer for Hunter: The Vigil 2nd Edition. Then, in 2016, Monica released an adventure called “Battle for the Undercity” for Wizards of the Coast’s creator-owned site dmsguild.com. Due to its reception, Monica was added to the list of Adventure League writers and contributed to “In Volo’s Wake” to announce In Volo’s Guide to Monsters. In addition to her creative contributions, she also worked as the Marketing Director for Steve Jackson Games from 2011 to 2013, and as John Kovalic’s business manager from 2009 to 2014. She now consults for Onyx Path Publishing, and has done so since its inception in 2012.

Fiction

Monica’s first known published short story was “Prey”, a Lovecraft-inspired piece that won an Honorable Mention for Neil Gaiman’s MirrorMask Competition sponsored by FutureFire.net. The following year, in 2006, Monica’s short story “Promises, Promises” for the Promethean RPG won entry into White Wolf Quarterly Magazine. Since then, Monica has published several short stories set in the worlds of Vampire: The Masquerade, Shadowrun, and many others. As an anthologist, Monica conceptualized Upside Down: Inverted Tropes in Storytelling. This collection, which was co-edited with Jaym Games, features stories and essays that examines tropes and clichés from a broad range of perspectives. It was a successful Kickstarter project for Apex Book Company, and the anthology received a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly.

Conventions

A frequent guest and speaker at conventions, Monica has been to CONvergence, GameHole Con, GameFest UK Expo, Geek*Kon, WisCon, Origins Game Fair, and many others. In 2015, she was invited to speak at the GAMA trade show in Las Vegas, and also presented for Origins University at Origins Game Fair in Ohio. Then, in 2016, she was announced as a Gen Con Industry Insider for Gen Con: Indianapolis. She is returning to the Gen Con Writer’s Symposium

Advocacy

Monica strongly believes in the importance of making art, sharing her expertise, and advocates for better representation in games, fiction, and comics. To that end, she pens a column for the SFWA.org about writing for games, and often writes guest blog posts and essays about the need and ways to implement better representation in media. Monica has also been serving on the Board of Applicants for the RPG Creator’s Relief Fund, a charity founded in 2016 to help RPG designers, writers, artists, and other professionals recover from personal disasters similar to The Hero Initiative for the comics industry.

In December 2016, she announced a program to help artists continue making art called Make Art Not War 2017 Challenge.

Works

Games

Original work

Media tie-in

Anthology editor

Media tie-in

Comics

References

  1. ↑ http://www.booksofm.com/monica-valentinelli-biography


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.