Author of the well-reviewed novel The Mason of New Orleans, Charles M. Ryan also has more than 30 years' experience in the games industry. There he's created or contributed to nearly every class of tabletop game—board games, card games, trading card games, miniature games, and roleplaying games—and he’s garnered awards and recognition for game design, editing and development, graphic design, and fiction. As a businessman, he’s worked in every tier of the market, from running his own independent publishing firm, to serving as Hasbro’s global brand manager for Dungeons & Dragons, to heading up marketing at the UK’s Esdevium Games, one of the world’s largest game distributors. Charles served as Chairman of the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts & Design, the professional organization of the games industry, from 1997 through 2001. For the past decade, he's been the COO and a partner at Monte Cook Games, publisher of innovative and imaginative roleplaying games such as Numenera, Invisible Sun, No Thank You, Evil!, and the Cypher System.