Behind the Curtain
The quality and innovation of Atlas Games' products comes from the hard work of our staff. Click below to learn more about us.
John Nephew
John Nephew is the president of Atlas Games. He got his start in the gaming industry by writing articles for
Dragon Magazine while he was still in high school. His writing paid his way through college, and he started Atlas Games in 1990 while he was still pursuing his BA in Philosophy at
Carleton College, as a way to publish his own work. John manages the business side of Atlas Games, handling distributor and retailer orders and queries, fulfillment (ie. packing boxes), accounts payable and receivable, translation queries, and even a little layout and proofreading once in a while.
Michelle Nephew
After years of playing
Shadowrun and
Vampire in college, Michelle Nephew's RPG editing career began in 2000 with Atlas Games'
Three Days to Kill, the very first adventure available for sale under the Open Game License. She followed this up by authoring her own OGL adventure,
The Tide of Years, in 2001. While continuing to edit and develop games for Atlas, she finished her Ph.D. in 2003, writing her
dissertation on the topic of authorship and roleplaying games. A chapter from that has since been published in
Gaming As Culture, a collection of academic essays on RPGs. More recently, Michelle has appeared as Guest of Honor at conventions like Gen Con and Origins, she designed the card game
Ren Faire in 2009, and she contributed a chapter to the
Kobold Guide to Board Game Design. With the title "Tenured Editor," Michelle wears many hats at Atlas Games today, including managing editor/developer for card and board games, layout monkey, and advertising/marketing coordinator.
Cam Banks
Cam Banks is Atlas Games' Brand Manager. He was born in the antipodean paradise of New Zealand, a nation whose geography doubles for such fictional landscapes as Mythic Greece and Middle Earth. Despite his uneventful education in history, philosophy, and psychology at NZ's Waikato University he learned his true passion was in playing games and making things up. Forsaking his homeland, he emigrated to the USA to marry his soul mate and pursue such diverse careers as retail manager, cafe manager, client engagement manager, and library annex manager. He spent the last decade working for Margaret Weis Productions and helped create, develop, and manage over fifty roleplaying games and sourcebooks, including award-winning RPGs based on Marvel Comics and Leverage. Now living in Saint Paul with his wife and two sons, Cam is thrilled to add "brands" to things he can manage.
Jessica Banks
Jessica Banks is executive assistant (read: all-purpose task monkey), as well as convention support person and
Special Ops demo team coordinator at Atlas Games. She was born and raised in Southeastern Wisconsin. Her first gaming experiences came with friends from a church youth group that played AD&D on Sunday afternoons. This lined up nicely with her music/theater/yearbook/happy goth geekiness, a condition that persisted through college.
She earned a B.A. in French Language and Literature from the University of Kansas, with a year abroad in Besançon, France, where she actually roleplayed in a foreign language (a non-degree credit). She moved on to Penn State, where she completed a Master's and Doctoral work in medieval Celtic history, with a focus on crazy Irish saints. She worked as an adjunct instructor in History, Religious Studies, and English at both Penn State and at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI.
She met her husband on a MUSH -- her in Kansas, him in New Zealand -- a long-distance affair that has turned into 14 years of marriage and two incredibly geeky, trouble-making sons.
Jerry Corrick
Jerry Corrick is the shadowy figure behind the throne at Atlas Games. In real life, Jerry is a mechanical engineer who designs incinerators, but he became John's partner in the
On the Edge days by providing the capital to make that project a reality. Though he lives in Virginia, Jerry is also the majority shareholder of the
Source Comics and Games in the Twin Cities, which makes the store Atlas' "sister company;" Jerry manages the group insurance for both companies. The Source's parent company -- Adventure Retail -- also represents Atlas Games at the larger conventions like GenCon, Origins, DragonCon, and San Diego Comic-Con under Jerry's guidance.
David Chart
David Chart is Atlas'
Ars Magica Line Editor. He's responsible for all stages of
Ars Magica product development from initial planning to final edit. Born in England, he was educated at a school founded in the 16th century and a university founded in the 13th, which nicely immersed him in Medieval History. These days he lives in Japan with his wife and daughter, and works as a freelance English teacher and roleplaying game author. Despite never having lived in the USA, he has actually met all the other Atlas staff in person on more than one occasion.
Wendy Wyman
Wendy Wyman is Atlas Games' webmaster. She got into gaming back in high school, where she learned that patience is a virtue, especially when creating
Rifts characters. This lesson served her well in college at
UW-Platteville, when her professor told her that "the internet is just a fad and you'll never make a living from it." At the moment, she is happy to live in West Point, NY with her wonderful & talented husband Drew and son James, where she has made her living from this fad for over a decade. Wendy has been the webmaster for such illustrious sites as
DorkTower, and is honored to add Atlas Games to her portfolio.