Daniel M. Hawkins
I am a writer, educator, artist, and game designer who believes that all writing is creative writing.
Learning itself is a skill that can be developed.
Recent Blog Posts
My Skills
Writing
For my whole life, I have been a creative writer. Now, I write fiction, critical essays, media scholarship, and blog posts. See my Writing Samples page for selected excerpts of my work.
Instructional Design
Having started curriculum development ten years ago as a teaching assistant in college whose professor asked me to help design a syllabus, I have since had plenty of professional Instructional Design experience.
Illustration and Graphic Design
I specialize in digital illustration and fictional cartography, skills that I have developed through years spent playing D&D and other role-playing games.
Game Design
I have been designing rule systems since I was 9 years old, inventing role-playing games from first principles with LEGOs. Today, I mainly work on tabletop and board games in my spare time, but I have graduate-level experience in videogame development. Developing 3D videogames is my next big project!
Biography
I am from Middletown, CT, where I grew up in the city’s vibrant performing arts scene. From elementary school into high school I performed in theatrical productions, particularly in Oddfellows Playhouse productions, a nationally-recognized award-winning youth theater organization.
In high school, I began taking music seriously, and played alto, tenor, soprano, and baritone saxophone in a variety of groups: marching band, jazz, concert, wind ensemble, and community groups like pit instruments for Oddfellows Children’s Circus and the Wesleyan University wind ensemble, WesWinds.
At Trinity College my focus shifted to writing. I earned my bachelor degree in English Literature, where I entered the field of game studies with my senior thesis, “Choosing a Door: Narrative Interactivity in Deus Ex: Human Revolution.” I also was the youngest ever novelist to attend the Colgate Writer’s Conference in 2017, and again in 2018.
I was fortunate to be accepted to the University of Southern California’s prestigious Cinema and Media Studies graduate program in the School of Cinematic Arts, where I continued my education in interactive media, though I picked up many other skills while I was there, like game development.
After receiving my masters degree, I moved to the Greater Boston area to start work as an Instructional Designer, a field that I believe rewards my experience in pedagogy. I continue to learn new art-forms, skills, and disciplines in my spare time, when I am not running RPGs for my friends.
Contacts
Location
Greater Boston, MA