Payton Klaer

I grew up in northern Indiana/southern Michigan in the actual middle of nowhere. This past spring I graduated from Indiana University, Bloomington with a BA in English, concentrating in Creative Writing, along with a minor in Media and Diversity.

With this degree, I hope to move into the publishing and editing world whether that be with books or online articles – whatever I can find that fits who I am as a person (extremely goofy but also giving the world some new perspective).

I have had a love for reading and writing for as long as I can remember and I’ve always been fascinated with the creation of stories. I constantly find myself noting how creators manage to achieve certain feelings with the smallest detail in their stories.

How I got here

Narrative based video games are actually what inspired me to want to write. Something about experiencing a game where the player has impact on the story hit my brain in just the right way to make me say “I want to do that.” So, here I am writing stories where readers can see themselves in new places with things that (probably…) aren’t possible in real life.

On that note, I also love interactive stories like those seen in Dungeons and Dragons. I got interested in it just before COVID hit back in 2020, so when the world shut down, it became a common activity. Podcasts taught me everything I know about the game and now I love to create little stories for my friends to enjoy while I play mastermind (and occasionally it’s the other way around). Interactive storytelling is such a love of mine and I hope I can contribute more of that to the world.