About Me

credit to musician Kirsty McGee

Hard at work…

I wrote my first story when I was 6 years old. It was about a boy who had no name, on his quest for a name. I was pretty sure it was going to be a hero’s journey, full of hilarious cartoony characters. After about 2 small notebook pages in, I grew tired and just gave the kid a name, foregoing all the work involved in building an epic tale. The end.

I always loved story writing assignments in school and college (the adventures of Scratch & Skid were 6th grade pulitzer worthy, I swear ;-). Really I tried to turn any writing assignment into a short story, which didn’t always go over so well. That style carried me from community college, into the University of Michigan film school, where I wrote a ton of scripts for film shorts and one full length movie script under the tutelage of Jim Burnstein (writer of Renaissance Man with Danny DeVito. Quick side note: I was actually an extra in that film for the Detroit scenes, though I have yet to find myself in the traffic jam scenes or crossing the street… so taking a class from Jim felt a bit like kismet). I was amazed at finishing something over 100 pages long. It gave me the idea that I could maybe write a book.

A move to the mountains of Washington, computer career, family and kids took over, and I pushed writing aside for 15 years. Once in awhile I would jot down an interesting idea or two and move on. Then one summer day while bored, I decided to mess with some writing exercises. I started with a semi-dystopic future in the near future, with the intent of writing some short stories around that. One exercise called for writing a 100 word scene and reducing it to 50 words. Mizgot came out of that, in fact it’s the first 50 words of my second book (work in progress).

I thought Mizgot would be another idea that I would just file away. But she has been quite persistent. After a couple of years, I finally gave in and started writing. Since then I’ve taken several classes, written several short stories and flash fictions on various topics, and worked on developing the Mizgot story line and world. My kids are now grown, my career is stable, I’m single and now living in the heart of Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. All my excuses are gone. It’s time to write!

The first Mizgot will release this year (targeting November 2015 if I can figure out things like cover art, epub creation, marketing, etc…).

Shoot me an email or join my newsletter for irregular updates. I’d love to hear from you.

— Rich


p.s. Below you can read all about my artist friend, Todd Gamble. He’s been working hard on providing me the art of my book and website! I’d encourage you to check out his Facebook page to see the awesome art he creates on a daily basis.

 


 

Artist Bio: Todd A. Gamble

ToddGamble

Model Railroading: Todd’s passion for trains and model railroading began at childhood . At the age of thirteen, Todd’s father built him a 4’ x 8’ train table. This is where he began to experiment with scenery techniques and new materials. His first paid model project was for the Redding Museum of History and Art in Redding, California. Later, Todd would manage Eastside Trains in Kirkland, WA. for a short while, the largest brick-and-mortar model train store west of the Mississippi. During that time he created the stores HO and N-scale display layout for the lobby.

Todd took a lead part in the HO-scale display layout for Busch / MTH which was exhibited at the Nuremberg Toy Show in Germany. He drew up concept sketches for the project and created the scenery.

Todd was the onsite scenery artist on the PFM (Pacific Fast Mail) HO Layout Preservation Project: dismantling and reassembling the layout to be exhibited in its permanent location at the Edmonds Historical Museum. Todd was also part of a crew of 5 who disassembled another model massive railroad layout in Park City, Utah and it was reassembled in Portland Washington. He was the scenery artist for this project.

Todd has created model railroad scenery for a multitude of private projects, one being a three-rail O-gauge layout, 3600 square feet in total size, which consists of all real-life historical locations in five western U.S. states. One location being the famed Promontory Point, Utah, where the transcontinental railroad was completed. All the main scenic locations had to be spot on from photographs. The client had photographs taken and soil collected from these five states which were then incorporated into the layout scenery by Todd.

Todd along with Master Modeler, Dennis Kauth, created the Holiday storefront model train display for The Bon Marche / Macy’s in Seattle, Washington. Todd is also the author of many “How To” articles on model scenery crafting, including N-scale Magazine and Mainline Modeler Magazine produced by Hundman Publishing.

Gaming: Todd is an award winning artist, he has won three EN Awards and two nominations. Todd was credited in reviewer “Endzeitgeist’s” Top Ten for 2013. He worked at Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro as a staff Cartographer working on world wide recognized brands such as Dungeons and Dragons, Forgotten Realms, Several Fantasy Novels with such authors as RA Salvatore, Ed Greenwood, and others, Pokemon JR Trading Card Games, G.I. Joe, Star Wars, Avalon Hill board games: Axis and Allies, Axis and Allies 25th Anniversary edition, Skull and Sword, Guadalcanal , Battle of the Bulge, Diplomacy and D-Day. Todd has created maps for many of the leading D20/Pathfinder companies. His cartography credits appear in Dungeon Magazine, Privateer Press No-Quarter Magazine, PolyHedron and more.

Todd co-owned Adventureaweek.com, an RPG subscription site and publisher of quality gaming adventures and Game Master materials. Adventureaweek.com is also known for one of its successful Kickstarter Campaigns, “Rise of the Drow”, a 550 page Underworld Adventure with contributions from leading creatives in the RPG industry.

Todd’s passion for miniatures has spilled over into the gaming world! He has created gaming tables for conventions and private use. Among the companies he has created works for are Privateer Press and Wizards of the Coast. Todd shares his methods with others by teaching classes at local hobby and gaming shops as well as magazine and blog articles.

More Miniatures for Film: Seattle Sonics NBA basketball television intro, Jose Cuervo: Cholula Salsa TV commercial, Safeco Insurance internal corporate film, Hilton/Regency TV commercial Miniatures for Advertising: Hasbro/Chainmail, Hasbro/D&D, Privateer Press/WarMachine Miniatures for Museums: Redding Museum of History and Art, Redding, CA., Exhibits and diorama for the California State Park Visitor Center at Burney Falls, Shoreline Museum of History, Shoreline, WA., Shasta Dam Visitor Center, Shasta Dam City, CA.,

Education Degree in “Promotion Graphics” (Advertising design). B.A. Degree in Fine Art with an emphasis on drawing and sculpture.