Ben Zackheim grew up in the American southwest. He was immersed in the visual arts world of Santa Fe, NM in the 1970s where he fell in love with the landscape and the area's fantastic stories, both historical and imagined. For fifteen years he wrote about, critiqued and made video games. His stint on the game blog, Joystiq, as the first Senior Editor coincided with the site's meteoric rise to the top of the blogosphere. After producing games for Sony and ESPN he moved on to AOL where his online games have been played by over ten million people. His first book "Shirley Lock & The Safe Case" is self-published as a testament to the changing digital marketplace that he witnessed firsthand in… the games business. He's a strong believer in the individual's power to get their work out there. He's scheduled to begin teaching classes in digital marketing at New York's School of Visual Arts in 2013.