The Basics
Legal Name: Steven Brian Trustrum
Gender: Male
Marital Status: Unmarried
Background: Canadian born; Scottish, Irish, English, French and German ancestry
Hometown: Georgetown (birth), Toronto (currently)
Birthdate: September 18, 1975
Other Web Sites: Facebook, Misfit Studios
Education
University of Toronto: 1994-1999, bachelors English specialization, sociology minor
Interests
Favorite Authors: Shakespeare, R.E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, Dan Abnett, Jim Butcher
Sports: Hockey, volleyball, baseball (playing rather than watching)
Hobbies: Reading, digital coloring and design, writing, role-playing games (various sorts and genres), video games (primarily strategic, action/adventure, shooter)
Steven at a Glance
Raised in Georgetown, Ontario (and briefly in Orillia), a small town west of Toronto, Steven embraced the Big City after leaving home to attend the University of Toronto. Steven was forced to extend his stay to five years after some cost-cutting resulted in curriculum changes that made unavailable several courses he required to graduate in the usual four years. To survive and stay in school (with the help of his grandfather and dad), he was employed at various part- and full-time jobs during this time, resulting in Steven being the only one of his siblings to finish college or university.
After graduating with a degree that would not be helpful in most practical terms unless he was to become a writer or teacher, Steven continued working in market research but also found steady freelance work writing role-playing game material, something he'd been doing for years anyway as part of the hobby. After nearly quitting the industry entirely following some rather unfortunate and demoralizing experiences with dishonest publishers, Steven stuck it out and continued to freelance for various other publishers while earning his living elsewhere, first as a call centre manager and then as an on-site IT support specialist at a prominent Toronto-based market research facility.
Steven formed Misfit Studios, "a company run by freelancers, for freelancers," in 2003 as a way to take more control over his work and to ensure he could work on the projects that truly interested him. Although self-publishing meant less money for the time spent on any given project, in the long run it proved more rewarding in other ways (and, working for himself, Steven no longer had to waste time hounding publishers to remember contracts they had no intention of obliging once the work was in their hands.)
Since mid-2009, Steven is no longer working in the market research industry and has been pursuing other interests and career options. He continues to run Misfit Studios as a successful business in his spare time while also working hard to improve his graphic and web design abilities, digital coloring, and other skills. (Not to mention studying new things, such as the mysteries of Visual Basic coding.)
