Janet Forbes

Author | Game Writer | Educator

Janet Forbes (she/her) is a published author and game writer, and the founder and CEO of World Anvil, the award-winning worldbuilding platform, novel writing software and RPG Campaign Manager.Click below to learn more about Janet's work, or click Contact below to inquire about speaking engagements, consultation, freelance work, and more.

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About

By day, Janet Forbes (she/her) is the CEO and founder of World Anvil, the award-winning worldbuilding platform, novel writing software and RPG campaign manager with over 3 million users.By night, she's a published author and game writer. Janet's past experience as an archaeologist, opera singer, teacher and educator, motivational speaker, polyglot, dinosaur-lover, entrepreneur and, somehow, professional recorder player, all find their way into the rich worlds woven through her stories. Her work explores everything from dungeon delving and dinosaurs, to feminism and freedom.Janet divides her time between the UK (where she was spawned) and Greece (where her in-laws live), mioaws when no one is listening, and is forever getting impractical ideas on aeroplanes.

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Education & Speaking

Janet is passionate about sharing practical approaches to worldbuilding, writing and game creation based deeply in theory. With her husband, Dimitris Chavlidis, she is the creator of the "Agile Worldbuilding Methodology".She's an acclaimed speaker, and has given seminars for GenCon, GaryCon, Rochester Institute of Technology, Writing Mastery Academy, Full Sail University, TraCon, DragonMeet, D20 at Sea, and ProWritingAid's Fantasy Week & Science Fiction Week.You can see Janet's lessons on Youtube and her free short "How to Start Worldbuilding Course" on WorldAnvil.com.Janet is the host of the World Anvil Worldbuilding Podcast, with past guests including Martha Wells, Gail Carriger, Chris Fox, Jason Carl, Wolfgang Baur and Laura Anne Gilman.She is the MC and custodian of Worldbuilding Con, with previous keynote speakers including Mary Robinette Kowal, R.A. Salvatore and Tracy Hickman.

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Fiction

Janet Forbes has previously published The Hand that Holds in Kyanite Press Magazine and The Song of the Loom available online at in Dream Theory Media Magazine.Her upcoming stories include Ask Medusa What Vengeance Costs in Bona Book’s Wrath Month Anthology and The Wolf of Darkwater Loch in Flame Tree Press's A Breath of Time Anthology.She is an alumna of Mary Robinette's Kowal's Short Story Writing Cohort, and of the Milford UK Critique Circle.

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RPG Game Writer

Janet is best known for her work as lead author of the Dark Crystal Adventure Game (pub. Jim Henson/Riverhorse Games). She has also written for Kobold Press, contributed to the cinematic TideBreaker RPG, and (with Dimitris Chavilidis) created The Omega Protocol for Vast Grimm (pub. Infinite Black). She was the lead writer and editor of the Blood Grotto: The Frozen Realm setting.

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