Michael Fiegel

Current

President at aethereal FORGE

Past

Designer at Turpitude Design
Creative Content Designer at Perpetual Entertainment
Technical Writer (Contract) at Fox Interactive Media

Technical Writer (Contract) at TalkPlus
Technical Writer at Tello Corporation
Graphic Designer at Karen Brown's Guides
Technical Writer at UltraDNS
Technical Writer at Softbook Press
Technical Writer at Onyx Networks
Senior Copywriter at AnotherUniverse.com
Creative Director at WKSE Kiss 98.5 and WGR55
Assistant Editor at The RAMA Group

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Education

Canisius College

Recommended

5 people have recommended Michael

Connections

226 connections

Industry

Writing and Editing

Websites

Michael Fiegel’s Summary

Writer, with experience in myriad fields including news and entertainment writing and editing, radio copywriting, catalog copywriting, scriptwriting, music and book reviews, online writing, marcom and technical writing.

Accompanying relevant experience in related fields including desktop publishing, layout, prepress, graphic design, game design, and web design.

Michael Fiegel’s Specialties:

Game writing, development and design, technical writing (esp. user guides), translation of copy between print and online media.

Michael Fiegel’s Experience

President

aethereal FORGE

(Writing and Editing industry)

January 1999 — Present (10 years 7 months)

Creator of Ninja Burger (www.ninjaburger.com), popular website. Concept has been licensed as a role-playing game, card game and line of apparel (through Steve Jackson Games). Book released June 6, 2006 through Kensington Books (www.rebelbasebooks.com).

Freelance writing, game design and editing for Adobe, Dog Soul Publishing, Dragon Magazine/Paizo Publishing, The Escapist, Khepera Publishing, Minion Games/RPGNow, MTV/AddictingGames.com, 9th Level Games, Politically Incorrect Games (formerly Spectre Press), R. Talsorian Games, Skotos/RPG.net and BrainChef.

Lead Columns Editor for RPG.net (2002-2005), Co-Editor for Gamegrene.com, 2000-2002 & 2005-present.
Designer

Turpitude Design

(Entertainment industry)

February 2008 — February 2009 (1 year 1 month)

Drafted design documents for various client projects, including world design, systems design, dialogue, and quest/mission design. Projects included several online casual "browser-based" games and three MMO projects. Assisted in the initial maintenance of an internal wiki and Intranet. Created graphics, maps, etc. to assist in initial conceptual design and to reinforce design concepts for clients.
Creative Content Designer

Perpetual Entertainment

(Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Computer Games industry)

April 2007 — October 2007 (7 months)

Worked with other writers and implementors to design, write and implement quests in the game. Oversaw and wrote the central quest arc including all "God Power Quests", intro movie text, god dialogue, etc. Generated historical background for internal and external web use. Assisted with writing and editing of the user manual. Assisted with editing of the GnH website.
Technical Writer (Contract)

Fox Interactive Media

(Public Company; 201-500 employees; Internet industry)

November 2006 — April 2007 (6 months)

Assisting in the development and organization of a company Intranet/wiki for the Technical Operations group at Fox Interactive Media (FIM) / IGN.
Technical Writer (Contract)

TalkPlus

(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Telecommunications industry)

September 2006 — October 2006 (2 months)

Assisted in the development and organization of a company Intranet/wiki; generated initial user documentation for product launch including user guide, quickstart, online help, etc.
Technical Writer

Tello Corporation

(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Internet industry)

July 2005 — August 2006 (1 year 2 months)

Handled writing, editing, layout and graphic design for end-user documentation (user guides, release notes, etc.) and internal engineering and operations documentation; maintained and developed the company websites, including intranet wiki (Twiki), corporate website, customer support site and customer management interface.
Graphic Designer

Karen Brown's Guides

(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Publishing industry)

January 2002 — October 2005 (3 years 10 months)

Handled all graphic design and layout duties for 17 annual travel guides, including cover design, interior layout, coordination with printer and editing assistance. Designed numerous direct mail pieces and advertisements. Maintained, updated and designed the company website.
Technical Writer

UltraDNS

(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Internet industry)

September 2000 — May 2001 (9 months)
Technical Writer

Softbook Press

(Public Company; 51-200 employees; GMST; Online Media industry)

July 2000 — September 2000 (3 months)
Technical Writer

Onyx Networks

(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Internet industry)

January 2000 — July 2000 (7 months)
Senior Copywriter

AnotherUniverse.com

(Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Publishing industry)

June 1999 — February 2000 (9 months)

This was probably the greatest job in the history of the universe (no pun intended). Here was the job: read comic books and play with toys, and then write about them. OK, there was a little more than that. I had to write copy to fit a more-or-less monthly catalog (48-60pp on average) about comics and collectibles, and work with the grapic designer and artists on layout for the same in Quark. Since we had a website, I also worked with the web department to edit and upload copy for the web version of the catalog.

I would have kept this job forever, but I left it to move to the West Coast to get into tech writing.
Creative Director

WKSE Kiss 98.5 and WGR55

(Public Company; 51-200 employees; SBGI; Broadcast Media industry)

March 1997 — May 1999 (2 years 3 months)

Stations I wrote commercials for included WKSE 98.5 FM, WMJQ 102.5 FM, WGR 55 AM, WWWS 1400 AM, WWKB 1520 AM. At the time, these stations were owned by Sinclair Broadcasting of Buffalo; now Entercom owns them.

In addition to copywriting and traffic management I handled design and layout for many print pieces including the annual Kiss Kalendar, and initial website design and maintenance for WKSE, WMJQ and WGR.
Assistant Editor

The RAMA Group

(Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Newspapers industry)

October 1995 — March 1997 (1 year 6 months)

I was Assistant Editor for Metro Community News, a newsweekly with a circulation of over 125,000 across 16 editions. I wrote, edited and proofread feature and news stories and managed layout in DEWAR and Quark XPress.

I also coordinated Internet efforts and maintained the Metro Weekend website, in addition to being a sometime layout artist and columnist for the latter, a sister publication to MCN.

Michael Fiegel’s Education

Canisius College

BA , English Honors , 1991 — 1995

Senior Honors Thesis entitled "Cyberpunk and the New Myth: Cyberchrists, Neuromancers and Virtual Morality"; online at www.aeforge.com/~aeon/thesis/

Activities and Societies:

Sigma Tau Delta, Little Theater, WCCG Radio,The Griffin student newspaper

Additional Information

Michael Fiegel’s Websites:

Michael Fiegel’s Interests:

Writing. Game design. World design.

Michael Fiegel’s Groups:

Sigma Tau Delta (International English Honors Society), IGDA (International Game Developers Association), The Writers’ Block (SIG of the Art Directors/Communicators of Buffalo), RPGFreelance (Freelance RPG Writers)