Matt Forbeck is an award-winning, New York Times – bestselling author and game designer. He has designed board games, collectable card games, role-playing games, miniatures games, and interactive toys. He has written comic books, video games, mobile games, alternate reality games, magazine articles, novels, nonfiction, screenplays, and short fiction. He has more than thirty works of novel and games, which have won dozens of honours and published in over 15 languages.
Halo: Bad Blood, the new Dungeons & Dragons: Endless Quest books, Life Is Strange: Welcome to Blackwell, the Star Wars: Rogue One junior novel, Dungeonology, and The Marvel Encyclopedia, plus work on Assassin’s Creed: Origins, Ghost Recon Wildlands, and the Shotguns & Sorcery roleplaying game based on his novels.
Forbeck graduated from University of Michigan with a degree in creative writing in 1989. He landed his first job as an editor at Games Workshop in Nottingham, England. Forbeck has worked as a writer and game designer full-time after he came back to America about thirty years ago. Forbeck and Shane Lacy Hensley formed Pinnacles Entertainment Group in 1996 to publish Deadlands and work four years as the president of Pinnacle before he returns to Wisconsin. After that, he worked two years as the director of adventure games division at Human Head Studios.
Interview with Matt Forbeck in Creative Writer:
How would you describe what you do every day as a Creative Writer?
I create stories that wind up as novels and games. To do that, I mostly sit at my desk in my house and smack my keyboard for hours at a time.
How did you get your job as a Creative Writer?
I have a degree in Creative Writing from the University of Michigan. When I was fresh out of college, I grabbed a student work visa for the UK and landed a job as an editor at Games Workshop in Nottingham, England. About thirty years ago, I came back home, and I’ve been a full-time writer and game designer ever since.
What is your favourite part of the job?
I love telling stories and entertaining people. I also like the fact that I can set my own hours, which means I can be there for my kids whenever they need me.
What aspect of the job would be surprising to people looking in from the outside?
It’s not all that exciting most days. People see writers at conventions and book signings and think it’s all a long party, but it’s really about putting your butt in the chair and getting the work done.
What kinds of talents and personality does it take to succeed as a Creative Writer?
You should enjoy being by yourself for long stretches of time, and you should like to tell stories whenever you get a chance.
What advice would you give somebody who’s thinking about becoming a Creative Writer for fresh graduates or juniors like me?
Give it a shot while you’re young, before you have all sorts of obligations like houses, cars, kids, and such. Those responsibilities make it harder to make the leap to full-time writing, but when you’re young and relatively carefree, it’s a lot easier to take those risks.
What would you recommend for education, books, or other learning to start down the Creative Writer career path?
All you really need is the determination to succeed and the willingness to learn from study and feedback. Most writers don’t have a Creative Writing degree, and many of them never went to college at all. These things can help you, of course, but they’re not strictly necessary the way they are for other professions.
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