Robert M. Everson

Robert M. Everson, aka "Spenser," has been gaming for the better part of 30 years. He is currently scratching several writing bugs, including a blog and a fiction project.

From website:

WHO AM I?

Who am I? You sure you want to know? The story of my life is not for the faint of heart. If somebody told you it was a happy tale, if somebody said I was just your average guy, not a care in the world… somebody lied. But let me assure you, this, like any other story worth telling, is all about a girl…

WAIT. No, no, no…that’s Peter Parker.

I’m was born and raised in Buffalo, NY—a drinking town with a sports problem. I have a passion for reading, games, music and food—all of which I’m sure I indulge in more than I should.

I’ve always been creative, but my creative potential wasn’t truly sparked until I discovered role-playing games. Sitting down to play Dungeons & Dragons for the first time, my mind exploded with an infinite number of stories and adventures that could be brought to life through role-playing games, and eventually writing. If someone had told 10-year-old me that one day my name would be on gaming books made for Dungeons & Dragons, I would have laughed in their face. But here I am, nearly 40 years later, and between freelancing and several small publishers I am making my way through the jungle that is the role-playing game industry.

GAMING WORK

I broke into the RPG industry in 2012 as a proofreader and editor for Gnome Stew, a website devoted to generic Game Mastering advice, and I’m proud to say that during my tenure we’ve won several ENnie Awards for Best Blog. The creator of Gnome Stew, Martin Ralya, also created a small publishing company called Engine Publishing, and I had the pleasure of proofreading several highly regarded books of GM advice, including the trilogy of Never Unprepared, Odyssey, and Focal Point.

In 2014 I joined a “dirty, hippie commune” called Encoded Designs, where I provide not only proofreading and editing, but also design and development. The team at Encoded is an amazing group of highly talented and motivated guys, and we’ve got a lot of exciting projects in the works.

WRITING

During the years that I’ve been playing RPG’s, I have occasionally written short pieces of fiction as backgrounds or flavor for some of the characters I’ve played. In April of 2011, I started this blog as a place to vent my frustrations with a rant from time to time, along with the idea of posting some of my gaming-related fiction as well. During the next few months I started having bursts of inspiration and writing flash-fiction based on images people would post on Google+, and an idea formed that started looking like plans for a novel. Now, I never set out to be a writer. In fact, in high school I hated writing, and avoided it like the plague. But suddenly there were all these words that wanted out of my head, so I went with it. Eventually, the novel idea got pushed onto the back-burner, and a new idea jumped to the front of the queue—and turned into a novella.