About

Monica Valentinelli has always been writing and reading in some form or another. She learned to read at an extremely early age, and was first published through a community contest at the age of 9. After high school, Monica attended UW-Madison’s Creative Writing Program, where she took advantage of the program’s flexibility and designed her own courseload. From technical writing courses to a graduate level course in Philosophy, Monica was able to supplement her writing courses with other forms of writing and research. In addition to her core writing workshops, she also expanded her reading extensively to Black American and Women’s literature, which have had a heavy impact on her fiction writing.

After graduating from college, Monica worked within several aspects of business including: finance, accounting, sales, marketing, graphic design, photography, and consulting while she pursued writing in her spare time. In her career, Monica has written and edited everything from press releases to legal correspondence and quarterly reports. She has also ghostwritten for several business publications including: Practical eCommerce, Multichannel Merchant, and CNET’s blogs.

Her genre writing and editing career experienced a boost after providing content for the Flames Rising horror fanzine and her attendance at several entertainment conventions and seminars. Monica has been published in the gaming industry several times, and has expanded her portfolio to include fiction and interviews with some of the premier personalities in the horror and dark fantasy industry.

Today, Monica works as a project manager for Flames Rising, regularly attends trade shows and conventions within the entertainment industry all-year-round, and has appeared on writing panels like her appearance at OddCon. Currently, she continues to pursue freelance writing and editing while working on her first novel pitch for a series entitled, “The Violet War.”

Monica’s freelance writing tips come from her own experiences as well as professional writers she has met through different venues like James Lowder, EE Knight, Jess Hartley, Matt Forbeck, George RR Martin, Tad Williams, Jean Rabe, Patrick Rothfuss and a host of other professional writers, editors, and generally great people. Her philosophy, as always, is to continue to promote other authors wherever she travels (online or offline) in order to perpetuate and implement the idea of a supportive writer’s community.

To Hire

Monica is actively seeking freelance work at this time. Please use her Contact page to email her directly. She will be happy to provide writing samples or recommendations.

Here’s what Lee, from Abstract Nova Press, has to say about her.

“Monica is one of the most professional writers I have worked with. She never misses a deadline and her ability to take a simple outline and deliver clear and colorful prose is amazing.”

Additionally, her rates will vary upon the market she is working in and the publisher she’s working for. Due to non-disclosure agreements and proprietary information for her non-fiction works, Monica is unable to provide any specific details or portfolio samples for that type of work.

Monica Valentinelli On the Web

Monica Valentinelli on Facebook
Monica Valentinelli on LinkedIn
Monica Valentinelli on LiveJournal

Current Projects and Appearances

At this time, Monica is working on two gaming-related assignments and a free-to-the-public online novel entitled “Argentum“. She will be attending GenCon: Indy from August 13th through the 18th, and can be found at the Abstract Nova booth #2115.

Publications

The credited publications listed on this blog is mostly specific to the genre Monica has been specializing in for the past, few years: horror and dark fantasy. There are over half a dozen other works out in the industry that Monica has also worked on, that have either fallen through the cracks or have not been published yet.

The work she has listed on this blog is not the full extent of her portfolio, feel free to contact Monica for more references and samples.

Published Games for Monica Valentinelli

Published Fiction by Monica Valentinelli (Licensed and Original Fiction)

Business Ethics

As a professional, Monica is always concerned with ensuring that the tone and the style of the work is a match for whatever business she is working for. As such, Monica has been known to work with business owners to integrate their sales and marketing efforts into their proposals, client-facing documents, and internal communication. Setting clear expectations with a style sheet and an outline, Monica has a high degree of flexibility to deliver quality prose on time in the manner that works best for whatever industry she is in.

Philosophy on Genre Writing

Monica has read horror and dark fantasy since she was a child. Her first published work, “Ella’s Story,” was a horror story that won third place in a Halloween community contest when she was 9. Since those early days, her reading library has grown significantly to include both literary and non-literary books, written by authors that hail from every race, religion and creed imaginable.

As an avid reader and writer, Monica’s goals circulate around what the work (or project) is trying to accomplish. When she is writing games, she attempts to create a “playable” game that targets the publisher’s intended market. When she is writing fiction, on the other hand, her goal is to tell an entertaining (yet believable) story. Often dubbed as “experimental,” Monica enjoys playing around with formats and word verbiage to create pieces that are edgy and expressive. Her new novel series, “The Violet War,” will originate as an online serial novel in order to offer a “test market.” Savvy and aware of the changes within the publishing industry, Monica is willing to take calculated risks with her work in order to continue learning about one of the most competitive industries in the world.

Her inspiration for much of her fiction work comes through historical research into events, human history, philosophy, etc. Monica spends a lot of time on research because in her experiences, truth truly is stranger than fiction.

Creative Commons Copyright

This blog is meant to share her own experiences as well as provide readers with insight from years of trial and error, networking, conventions and invaluable advice from other professionals. As such, this blog’s content is protected under the Creative Commons License.

This work is licensed under a:

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.