Paul Callaghan is a freelance writer and independent game developer who has worked in the games industry since 1998 as a programmer, designer, writer, and teacher for companies as diverse as Atari, Infinite Interactive, AIE, 2K Marin, Chocolate Liberation front, the ABC, and The Project Factory.

An active member of the development and education community, Paul has presented on topics including writing for games, play, what education can learn from game development, and the fundamentals of game design at the National Screenwriters’ Conference, GCAP, VITTA, TEDxMelbourne, the Emerging Writers’ Festival, the State Library of Victoria, Screen Australia, ACMI, CAE, and RMIT.

Paul is also the director of the Freeplay Independent Games Festival, an annual event that focuses on the creative side of games and the intersection between art, games, education, and the broader digital culture. From 2010 to 2011, he sat on the board of the Game Developers Association of Australia.

His writing on games, play, and storytelling has appeared online at if:Book Australia, Kill Your Darlings, ibrary, The Edge, and The Australia Council for the Arts, and in print in the Emerging Writers’ Festival Reader, Newswrite, Storyline, and Meanjin.

Away from games, Paul has written award-winning short-stories, short films, comics, too many articles to count, and is currently working on a novel.