Toiya Kristen Finley

Nashville native Toiya Kristen Finley is a writer, editor, game designer, narrative designer, and game writer. She holds a Ph.D. in literature and creative writing from Binghamton University. With nearly 70 published works, she has over 20-years experience writing in a range of genres, tones, styles, and voices. Her short stories have appeared in anthologies and selected to a best-of series. In 2011, she co-founded the Game Writing Tutorial at GDC Online with Tobias Heussner and served as an instructor in 2011 and 2012.

In videogames, she has worked as a game designer, narrative designer, game writer, and editor (or some combination of the four) on several unreleased and in-production indie, social, and mobile games for children and general audiences. Some of these projects shall stay locked away in dungeons for eternity (hey, that’s the game industry for ya). Published games include Academagia: The Making of Mages (Black Chicken Studios), Wooli: Return to Ploppington (CrowdCell), and Fat Chicken (Relevant Games). She co-authored The Game Narrative Toolbox (Focal Press, 2015), a book on narrative design, with Jennifer Brandes Hepler, Ann Lemay, and Tobias Heussner. She is a member of the IGDA Game Writing Special Interest Group’s Executive Board. Her current projects include a book on narrative design and game writing for mobile/social games (CRC Press, 2017); game design and narrative design for a VR start-up; and her own game, YA novel series, and manga series projects.