Core Crew
Quinn Milton Pronouns: Ze/They, Honorific: M. Owner. Specialties: Branding, Marketing, Logistics Quinn Milton has participated in and created larps for 11 years, with several years experience as a Production Head. They have worked at the Wayfinder Experience (WFE) for six years and are also member of the WFE Story Board. Quinn is an artist who works in a variety of media, including painting, writing, and zines. |
Sadia Bies Pronouns: They/Them, Honorific: M. Owner. Specialties: Art and Costume Directing, TTRPG Sadia has been creating and costuming larps for five years. They have painted and taught art professionally with Artists for Humanity for seven years, and regularly cosplay. They have also been a professional GM. |
Maya Ziv Pronouns: She/Her, Honorific: None Director of Technology. Specialties: Logistics Maya has been playing and writing larps for over seven years, and teaching workshops with The Wayfinder Experience for six. She is currently a computer science student at Stanford University and works as an indie game developer when she isn't in school. |
Jessica Lachenal
Pronouns: She/Her, Honorific: None Director of Production, The Wilds Jessica Lachenal is a writer, installation artist, and immersive experience designer who is enamored with the idea of building new worlds where they’re least expected. She’s helped build secret societies, indoor forests, outdoor living rooms, and even an entire night sky in the back of a box truck. |
Christopher Day
Pronouns: They/Them, Honorific: None
Intern
Chris is a game design student at the University of Cincinnati.
Pronouns: They/Them, Honorific: None
Intern
Chris is a game design student at the University of Cincinnati.
Writers
Aysha U. Farah is a freelancer in her late twenties living in the American south and slowly letting moss grow on her philosophy degree. She is a barista by day, and a science fiction writer by night. In her spare time she enjoys running and binge-listening to podcasts. Interests include robots, cocktails, and driving with the windows down. https://store.steampowered.com/app/833040/Hiveswap_Friendsim/
Barbara Perez Marquez (She/Her) is a writer, editor, and curator. She's one of the members of Old Crone Studio, the studio behind Godslayer. In her time she's also organized books and anthologies, most recently including Bruja Cotidiana and the Star Wars Fanzine. You can follow her on Twitter @mustachebabs, where she shares ideas until she finds the perfect one for her next project, or read more of her work at www.mustachebabs.com.
Ru-Lee Story is a writer, theatre artist, and possible alien hailing from Atlanta, Georgia. Ru-Lee graduated from Ball State University with a degree in playwriting. By day they sell tickets and coordinate field trips at the Center for Puppetry Arts, and by night they work on their writing and hang out with their amazing spouse Benjamin and their adorable kitten Frisk. Ru’s current project is a post-apocalyptic fairy tale told entirely through the medium of blogging. Set in a post-pandemic world in which millions of humans “backed up” their souls before death in a new technology known as a Slipper, the blog takes you inside the memories of Glass, the person charged with visiting each Slipper, collecting the soul inside, and delivering it to its next life. Check out the Glass Slipper Project at https://theglassslipperproject.blog/.
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Nyri A. Bakkalian, PhD, is a queer Armenian American by birth and a military historian by training. She is proud to have called both the American and Japanese Northeasts her home. Her writing, art, and photography have appeared in venues like Gutsy Broads, Metropolis Japan, The Raven Chronicles, Gods and Radicals, Inklette, and QueerPGH. Her essay “Curtains in the Breeze” won first place in The Fountain Magazine’s 2017 essay contest, and the anthology Rogues and Wild Fire, of which she was a co-author, reached Amazon bestseller status in early August 2018. What’s her secret, you ask? Garlic and Turkish coffee. But really, mostly Turkish coffee. Follow her writing and art at shiogamawaves.com, or come say hello to her on Twitter at @riversidewings.
Artist-musician JD Glass is the author of American Library Association (Stonewall) and Lambda Literary Award (Literature) finalist Punk Like Me, the follow ups Punk And Zen Part I and Part II (also critically acclaimed by the Lambda Literary Society), Lambda Literary Award and Ben Franklin Award finalist Red Light, GCLS finalist American Goth, the critically acclaimed by London-based Chroma for X; selection editor (and contributor) of GCLS Award winning anthology and Lesbian Fiction Reader’s Choice Award for Outsiders, listed on the Advocate’s Top 100 for CORE, Vol.1 Iss.1., the well-received First Blood, GCLS finalist Nocturnes, and the fan-awaited Glass Lions. Called by some the voice of a generation, JD works in often familiar-seeming worlds, with people we know, people like ourselves, people we’d like to meet, and provides powerful stories that allow the reader to rejoice and wonder, stumble and fall, then rejoice victoriously again at the amazing experience of being human. JD's latest novel work includes a special 10 year Anniversary edition of Punk Like Me (which has now been translated into German), the intense and daring (with foreword by Advocate Magazine Editorial Director, Diane Anderson-Minshall) Drawn Together, and the forthcoming Fire Fall. Well known and respected in LGBQT spaces, in addition to writing articles for magazines The Advocate and After Ellen, JD also curated and edited the 33 page spread for this past summer’s GO Magazine’s 100 Women We Love – Pride Issue. JD also writes games for the wildly popular Voltage Entertainment-Lovestruck platform, FableLabs, and Event Horizon.
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Previous Crewmates
Ben "Books" Schwartz
Pronouns: They/Them
Co-founder; Previous Director of Words and Worlds
Ben "Books" Schwartz has been creating and directing larps for over a decade. They served as Artisan Guild Coordinator for Trackers Earth larp summer camp and are a member of the Story Board of the Wayfinder Experience. They have an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults and a lifelong love of all things space opera. They co-founded and co-created Event Horizon, but have since moved on to other interstellar journeys.
Angelo Taylor
Pronouns: He/Him
Prop Maker and Graphic Designer
Angelo makes big things out of metal for fun. Most of them light up. He can be seen with his mobile laser turret, the King Mahtusahn, at Maker Faire, Burning Man, and numerous other art and music festivals. Angelo was the primary builder of the Obelisk and Nodes.
Ben "Books" Schwartz
Pronouns: They/Them
Co-founder; Previous Director of Words and Worlds
Ben "Books" Schwartz has been creating and directing larps for over a decade. They served as Artisan Guild Coordinator for Trackers Earth larp summer camp and are a member of the Story Board of the Wayfinder Experience. They have an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults and a lifelong love of all things space opera. They co-founded and co-created Event Horizon, but have since moved on to other interstellar journeys.
Angelo Taylor
Pronouns: He/Him
Prop Maker and Graphic Designer
Angelo makes big things out of metal for fun. Most of them light up. He can be seen with his mobile laser turret, the King Mahtusahn, at Maker Faire, Burning Man, and numerous other art and music festivals. Angelo was the primary builder of the Obelisk and Nodes.
