Mechelle McGowan Cheng

I’m Mechelle McGowan Cheng, a writer and storyteller who has spent more than twenty years living inside game worlds. I’ve played World of Warcraft since the 2004 beta, along with hundreds of other games, and I’m always the player who says, “If the story had just gone this way, it would have had so much more depth.” I read a game the way an editor reads a manuscript, watching where the story pulls you in, where it stalls, and what one different choice could have given a moment.

I’ve published two paranormal romance novels, written investigative journalism, and spent decades on the technical side of the industry in game testing, culturalization, licensing, and AI training. I also run a genealogy research company, and tracing real family histories is a lot like building believable lore and bloodlines for a game world. Now I want to bring all of that together, writing stories, quests, and characters, and storyboarding the scenes I can already see in my head.

My resume shows a career with a lot of turns. None of them came from being unhappy where I was. Each one came from a challenge to learn something new, and that hunger to learn is exactly what I bring to a story team.