Speaking & Writing
The unexpected part of you is your biggest strength. Drawing on two decades of leading teams through crisis, technology shifts, and creative development, I help audiences understand how being different is a feature not a bug. There are even bad jokes included, no extra charge.
I'm open to inquiries for speaking engagements in 2026 across Australasia and Asia. Please get in touch to learn more, or explore some of my favourite talks, workshops and podcast conversations below.
Speaking Topics
- Surfing the chaos: practical steps for leaders and boards to embrace advanced technology
- How your small weird crew can outdo the giants
- Deep storytelling for leaders
- Neurodiversity in an AI age
- Video game industry history, trends and futures
- Horror and creativity: the dark places hold the treasure
The Storytelling for Leaders workshop series is about helping leaders and teams master the art of story, from strong foundations to practical application.
From the ancient fundamentals of storytelling in human history and ritual, to insider case studies from modern startups, crisis management, and the worlds of film, tv, and video game development, we will take you on a journey of applied narrative mastery.
Facilitated by Jo Fitzgerald and Colin Rowsell, leaders and communicators who've supported teams through some of the biggest challenges imaginable.
For more information, free guides, testimonials and booking inquiries see the Storytelling For Leaders website.
Small Weird Crews - A Field Guide
Practical wisdom from people who've built small, high-trust teams that outdo larger organisations. From game studios to startups, special forces to garage bands, monasteries to Mortal Kombat. For anyone who wants to do truly ambitious things with their crew.
Full book coming 2026. Visit the preview site for previews and updates.
Talks
Emotional Climate Change: The inner landscapes of horror
Horror is the most primal genre, grounded in experiences that resonate with deep human fears and emotional landscapes. This talk explores how effective horror development starts with understanding the connection between external terrors and internal emotional states, creating a "psychic bridge" between creator and audience.
Small Weird Crews: Building high-performing teams of humans
Lessons for NZ's growing game dev ecosystem from other regions and industries - how to keep the focus on people while growing business value. A realistic yet optimistic talk for founders, team leaders, and anyone interested in building lasting creative firms that honour he tangata (our people).
The Campfire in The Storm: Leadership Storytelling during Crisis
This talk explores how effective leaders use storytelling as an interactive framework that helps teams navigate through chaos. Drawing on crisis management experience from disaster recovery, high-growth startups and scale-ups, we examine how stories shape team resilience, decision-making, and ultimately, the games we create.
Hello Chaos My Old Friend: Learning from the Messiest Projects
Game development has sometimes struggled to learn from other fields as it evolves. But areas as diverse as disaster recovery, startups, SaaS scaling, and public sector rollouts offer fascinating (and sometimes hilarious) comparison points for the age-old question: how do you manage when things are completely off the rails?
Let's Go Dark Together, the Sequel: Darkerer
A philosophical discussion of the possible evolution of interactive entertainment. Indie horror games - 13th century Italian poetry - Information theory - the Imaginal Realm - Lovecraft - hope.
Project Tempest Tales
Three horror novellas about darkness and mystery on the New Zealand frontier.
1862
"... hauntingly lyrical and delightfully strange ... highly original in tone, concept, and execution ... visceral and evocative imagery."
- Booklife Prize (Publisher's Weekly)
Love meets madness on a 19th century frontier at earth's end. He's been sent to investigate the wreck of a mysterious expedition ship off the wild coast of New Zealand. But the locals are strange, and the explorers driven insane.
There's one hope he still holds dear, a long-hoped-for reunion with the final survivor, yet that connection proves the most twisted and troubling of all.
Read now on Amazon
Two Strange Girls
A turbulent friendship falls apart amid secrets, betrayal, and horror. Can we ever regain what's lost?
Tempest Bay, 1910. A south seas smuggling town where misfits of all kinds live with vivid intensity. Marjorie Morton and Constance Pream are smart and strange and gloriously difficult. Both know they'll be lifelong friends. But when a storm brings a distress call from the ocean deep, terrors emerge to threaten everything they love.
Read now on Amazon
Her Mad Song
The strange and haunting tale of rediscovering yourself in a time of madness.
It's a strange time in Tempest Bay, the haunted New Zealand town at the end of the earth. A pair of mysterious travellers arrive in search of a lost scientist. Sheltering on the high wild clifftops, they must navigate a labyrinth of secrets below as a long-awaited storm makes landfall.
Read now on AmazonPodcast conversations
Lovecraft's Letters and Influence
A conversation with the great S.T. Joshi, H.P. Lovecraft scholar and bibliophile.
Narrative, Story Worlds, and Transmedia
A deeply personal conversation with Jeff Gomez, modern mythologist and innovator of the collective journey.
Interactive narrative and pursuing the writer's dream
A conversation with Sarah Beaulieu, Narrative Director on the Assassin's Creed video game franchise.
One of the most exciting times in the history of media
A conversation with Simon Pulman, leading entertainment dealmaker working across games, film, tv and complex rights deals.