Michael A. Stusser is a Seattle-based free-lance writer and game inventor. His “Accidental Parent” column (ParentMap magazine) recently won the prestigious Gold Award at the Parents Publication Awards, and his “Dead Guy Interviews” (Mental Floss magazine) will be released by Penguin Publishing in 2007. Stusser is a contributing writer for Seattle Magazine and his work is frequently published by Law & Politics, Yoga International, Travel Magazine and the New York Times Syndicate. Stusser is also the co-author of The Doonesbury Game with Garry Trudeau ("Best Party Game of the Year" by GAMES Magazine), and EARTHALERT, The Active Environmental Game (Parent’s Choice award-winner). His most recent board game, Hear Me Out, was launched at Starbucks in 2004 and is available at toy stores worldwide. Along with playwright Michael Neff, Stusser is the author of the screenplays for “Tabloid News” and “Freak Show.” His educational television series, “Twisted Scholar,” has been optioned by Nickelodeon. Stusser has been a featured playwright in 14/48 (The World’s Shortest Theatre Festival). His most recent play, Call Waiting, was produced at The Seattle Fringe Festival, and featured in American Theatre magazine. Other plays include The Real World, nominated as "Best of the Fest" at The New City's Playwrights Festival (1994), and Check Out (2002), and Houses in the Fields (2007). Stusser brings an out-of-the-box approach to communications, activism and message, and his ideas promote collaboration, world vision, and achievement. Beginning in the environmental movement at the University of California at Berkeley (BA 1986), Stusser has worked as a political organizer and lobbyist for the Public Interest Research Groups (CalPIRG, MASSPIRG and USPIRG), Greenpeace and Rock & the Environment. He was a CORO Fellow graduate in Los Angeles in 1989. The through line in Stusser's work is a desire to find new ways to increase dialogue about the critical issues of our times, empower individuals to make change, and, ultimately, take back the democratic process. And if they crack up along the way, even better…