The Lee Sheldon Papers consist of screenplay & teleplay drafts, pitches, treatments and correspondence related to Sheldon’s produced and unproduced film and TV projects. The collection also includes numerous video game development and design documents written by Sheldon, including scripts, outlines, and correspondence.

Charles Lee Sheldon is a screenwriter, video game writer/designer, and educator, with a career spanning more than 40 years. Originally from Ohio, he graduated from Boston University in 1972 and California Institute of the Arts in 1974. He worked as a screenwriter from the mid-1970s through the 1980s on dramatic television shows such as Charlie’s Angels, Blacke’s Magic, Tucker’s Witch, Cagney & Lacey, The Hardy Boy Mysteries, Probe, Star Trek: The Next Generation and Snoops. From 1983-1984, Sheldon was the head writer for the long-running soap opera, The Edge of Night, during its final season. Sheldon began writing for computer games in the early 1990s. At Sanctuary Woods, he co-designed, wrote and directed PC games including Ripley’s Believe It or Not: The Riddle of Master Lu (1995). For SouthPeak Games, he designed and wrote PC games Temujin and Dark Side of the Moon and the browser-based ARG The Light Files. Later, he was head writer for Uru: Ages Beyond MYST for Cyan, designed and wrote games based on Agatha Christie novels for Dreamcatcher Interactive, and worked on massively multiplayer games and social media games. He also has over a dozen serious and educational game credits in addition to commercial titles. Sheldon began his teaching career in video game writing and design as an assistant professor for the Department of Telecommunications at Indiana University from 2006-2010. Then he became an associate professor at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where he also acted as co-director of the Games and Simulation Arts and Sciences program 2010-2015. There he created the first full Writing for Games program in the United States. He is a retired professor of practice in game writing in the Interactive Media and Game Development Program at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts. In his academic work, Sheldon authored many articles, presented talks on game development, participated in grants, and is the author of multiple game design books: Character Development And Storytelling For Games (2013), The Multiplayer Classroom: Designing Coursework as a Game (CRC Press, 2020) and The Multiplayer Classroom: Game Plans (CRC Press, 2021). He is active in professional organizations including the Mystery Writers of America, The Writers Guild of America, the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences, and the International Game Developers Association.

14 linear feet

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