Lizzie Stark is a nonfiction author and participation designer. Her most recent book, Egg: A Dozen Ovatures (W.W. Norton, 2023), explores the world’s largest cellular workhorse from chickens to penguins and art to crime. Previous books include Pandora’s DNA: Tracing the Breast Cancer Genes Through History, Science, and One Family Tree (Chicago Review Press, 2014), an ALA Notable Book and Leaving Mundania (Chicago Review Press, 2012), about larp. Her essays and journalism have appeared in The Washington Post, Daily Beast, Salon, i09.com, and Today Show, among others.
Lizzie is also an award-winning analog game designer and game editor. Her work has been shown at festivals including IndieCade, Stockholm Fringe Festival, and the Future of Storytelling. Participation design clients include the Peabody Essex Museum and the Kennedy Center, among others. Her travels in gaming have taken her to places she hadn’t imagined, from teaching playable theater at Northeastern University to serving as a Guest of Honor at the massive game convention Gencon, and designing, producing, directing and performing in two pieces of playable theater with collaborator Kellian Pletcher. With teams of collaborators, she edited the Ennie-nominated and Indiegroundbreaker-winning #Feminism collection of nanogames as well as the Larps from the Factory collection of Norwegian larps. Her longtime, collaboration with Bully Pulpit designer Jason Morningstar is called Six of Hounds. In 2020, they became the first non-Danes in the 30+ year history of the Fastaval convention to win the coveted Best Scenario Otto for their comedy The Lesser Players’ Tale.
A frequent speaker in college classrooms, her credits include talks about science writing, medicine, and game design as well as a TedX talk about the patient experience.
She holds an M.S. in journalism from Columbia University and an M.F.A. in fiction writing from Emerson College. She’s been awarded multiple residencies at the Yaddo colony, and was named a Wallace Foundation Resident there in 2016.
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