About Mark
I grew up the son of a Baptist preacher, raised in the Bible Belt in the 1980s — where “Dungeons & Dragons” was a dirty word. A month before my 13th birthday I landed in Ludowici, Georgia, a small one-redlight town that somehow became home. I left after graduation and spent nearly two decades out in the wider world before coming back to teach at my old high school. Some places have a way of pulling you back.
I’ve been teaching on and off since 2005, and I’ve had the privilege of working with learners at just about every stage of life — from preschoolers finding their voice to adult learners rewriting their stories. Whether the classroom is a self-contained elementary special education room or a college lecture hall, I’ve always believed that the best learning happens when people feel seen, safe, and genuinely engaged.
My journey into tabletop roleplaying games started in the most unexpected place: church. My son’s youth minister — knowing full well of my origin story — asked if I’d let my son play D&D with his peers. I said yes, after hours of journalistic research. What happened next changed everything. I watched one game open my son up socially and psychologically in ways that months of other efforts hadn’t. Then I saw it happen again with students. And again with friends. The pattern was impossible to ignore.
That’s when I realized there’s something genuinely powerful about intentionally weaving social-emotional learning into tabletop RPGs. The table creates a safe space to practice empathy, communication, resilience, and self-awareness — all dressed up as an adventure. That insight is at the heart of everything I write and everything I teach.
When I’m not at the table or in the classroom, I’m blissfully married, the father of two, and the proud owner of an eclectic petting zoo of creatures both furry and feathered. I also publish new SEL-infused TTRPG content every week on Patreon, I’ve published a handful of supplemental books for Game Masters, and my adventures have appeared in three published compendiums on DriveThruRPG.
