The Gentler Side of SuperVillains with Natalie Zina Walschots

Natalie Zina Walschots, originally from Essex County, is a writer and game designer whose work includes live action role-playing game (LARP) scripts, heavy metal music journalism, video game lore, and weirder things classified as "interactive experiences." Her writing on the interactive adventure The Aluminum Cat won an IndieCade award, and her poetic exploration of the notes engine in Bloodborne was featured in Kotaku and First Person Scholar. She is also an accomplished poet, publishing: Thumbscrews, which won the Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry, and DOOM: Love Poems for Supervillains. Natalie sits on the board of Dames Making Games, a space for queer and gender-marginalized people to create games freely, and where she hosts interactive narrative workshops.  Her first novel, Hench, with the William Morrow imprint of HarperCollins Canada,  about a young office temp who discovers the dark side of working for super heroes and super villains, will be released in September 2020, and has already garnered several starred reviews, and  accolades including the Publishers WeeklyWriter to Watch, Amazon’s Top September SFF pick, and Apple Books’ Best Books of September.If you listen carefully, you might hear Lydia the cat in the background!https://www.harpercollins.ca/9780062978578/hench/http://nataliewalschots.com/