Kathryn Megan Starks
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senior game designer / creative writer

Fictivate / 'fik-ti-vāt / verb [ trans. ]
1. to make fictive : to create by imagination
2. to invent or fabricate, esp. regarding a narrative fiction.



Résumé
welcome

Kathryn Megan Starks is a writer, editor, and game designer in Orange County, California. She currently works as a senior narrative designer at Obsidian Entertainment. Her game titles at the studio include the RPGs The Outer Worlds, Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire, and Tyranny. An experienced professional with 8+ years in the industry, she previously worked as a senior game designer on the MMO Wildstar at Carbine Studios where she managed a team of content designers and developed fresh, fun, new video game content. Prior to that, she was a lead content designer and game writer on the MMO Fallen Earth.

Her short fiction has appeared in Prick of the Spindle, The Battered Suitcase, Atlas and Alice, Glossolalia, Rose & Thorn, Eight Cuts, The Legendary, The Glass Coin, Blink-Ink, and the flash fiction anthology On Strike! 

Megan has a Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. She lives with her husband, Scott, and their cat Sushi and enjoys snowboarding, reading, and playing video games.


Her novel, House of Ash and Brimstone, is a 2018 Golden Heart® finalist and was selected for showcase in Pitch Wars 2017. 

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She is represented by Eva Scalzo @ Speilburg Literary.

press

07 January 2019
Megan Starks is nominated for a Writers Guild Award for Best Videogame Writing of 2019 as a Narrative Designer on Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire

02 January 2019
Deadfire wins The Golden Cube and Best Desktop/Console Game of 2018 awards from Unity

18 December 2018
Pillars of Eternity II wins PC Gamer's Best RPG of 2108​: "
In terms of writing, quest design, and world-building, Obsidian is at the top of its game in Deadfire."

10 December 2018
Megan Starks speaks on Character Building, Companions, Branding, and more in The Outerworlds with ShackNews

07 December 2018
RPG Site chats with Senior Narrative Designer Megan Starks about writing for The Outer Worlds, what makes designing a single-player RPG so compelling, and more

06 December 2018
Deadfire is nominated for Best RPG at The Game Awards 2018 

10 November 2018
Megan Starks joins Obsidian Entertainment to discuss partnering with Microsoft (mostly I just gush about how cool it is to work with the team and on such awesome games)

19 October 2018
House of Ash and Brimstone wins second place Best Overall in OCCRWA's The Charlotte contest

16 October 2018 
Deadfire wins PC Game of the Year from Trusted Reviews

08 August 2018
Megan Starks wins first place in The Rudy contest's paranormal category with House of Ash and Brimstone

16 July 2018
House of Ash and Brimstone ranks first place finalist in the Orange Rose and The Rudy contests and is a finishing finalist in the Sheila and Great Beginnings contests

21 April 2018
House of Ash and Brimstone wins third place in Chicago-North RWA
®'s Fire&Ice competition

21 March 2018
House of Ash and Brimstone is a 
Golden Heart® Finalist!

26 January 2018
The Manuscript Shredder talks "Opening Action: Getting It Right" with House of Ash and Brimstone

18 October 2017
PitchWars interviews Megan Starks and Emily Colin about House of Ash and Brimstone

16 October 2017 
Harvest Hulls Halloween short story published at Atlas and Alice
 
24 August 2017
House of Ash and Brimstone by Megan Starks is selected as a 2017 PitchWars winner!

05 September 2016
Narrative Designer, Megan Starks, joins Obsidian panelists Brian Heins, Josh Sawyer, Matt MacLean, and Denise McMurry to discuss "Heroes, Villains, and You: Player Choice in Game Design" at PAX West 2016

12 August 2016
GameRevolution interviews the writers for Obsidian's Tyranny on Evil and Surviving in a Tyrannical World

21 August 2014
LazyGamer sits down with Senior Game Designer, Megan Starks, to discuss the recent launch of WildStar

17 August 2014
MMORPG Life talks content updates with Senior Game Designer, Megan Starks at Gamescom 2014

06 June 2014
Megan Starks joins the WildStar Weekly cast to showcase questing in 6-14 zone, Celestion

04 June 2014
Gamereactor TV catches up with Senior Game Designer, Megan Starks, to talk Raids in Wildstar


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Photography by lomonicophotography.com

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n o w   p l a y i n g :

Hades / pc
Red Dead Redemption II / ps4
Monster Hunter: World / ps4


n o w   r e a d i n g :

American Gods /
Neil Gaiman
Clariel / Garth Nix
The Last of August / Brittany Cavallaro


f a v o r i t e s :

Witcher 3, Fallout 3 & NV, BioShock, Final Fantasy 12, Borderlands 2, Portal 2, Saints Row 3, Tales from the Borderlands, Resident Evil 7, Monster Hunter Tri, Catherine, Alice: Madness Returns, Valkyria Chronicles, The Wolf Among Us, Child of Light, Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, Halo: Reach, Minecraft, Castle Crashers, Splatoon

The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel / Amy Hempel
Warm Bodies / Isaac Marion
Chronicle of a Death Foretold / Gabriel García Márquez

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recommendations

" I have been working with Megan's team for well over a year now at Carbine Studios. Megan is a fantastic content lead, and her leadership helps make her team one of the best content teams I've worked with over my career. The work that Megan and her team does is high quality, very fun, and she goes the extra mile to make sure it's polished. 

I'm very impressed with the way she is able to communicate between content, art, and systems so that we're working as a team and not as separate departments. Megan is always open to suggestions and will actively iterate on her work to make sure her team's content is the best it can be. 

I enjoy working with someone as talented as Megan, and I highly recommend her. I hope to remain working with her team for years to come. "

- Brian Motisko / Senior Systems Designer at Carbine Studios
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All content copyright © Kathryn Megan Starks, 2010-2018.
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