While traveling across the cosmos, Dustin Schyler Yoak, a writer, editor, painter, and podcaster of little renown among the outlying planets of our solar system, crash landed in a small suburb of Ohio. Seeing the value of a quaint and quiet lifestyle, he put down roots. In 2017, he graduated with a BFA in Creative Writing receiving high marks from his peers and professors all around. Having successfully infiltrated our culture, he co-founded Aphotic Realm Magazine in 2017, the podcast, Geek-Men and the Masters of the ThunderNerds the following year in 2018, and ThunderNerd Customs, his freelance painting and customizing service in 2019. Dustin’s latest work, Dead Falls, can be found in By Years End: a Year 47 Anthology, or other short stories found among the pages of Aphotic Realm Magazine.
To this day, Dustin resides at his home in Ohio, hidden among us with his wife and two female offspring, whom he spends his free time mediating arguments and maintaining galactic peace.
The Long Story
Dustin Schyler Yoak knew he wanted to be involved in the entertainment industry after watching Return of the Jedi at three-years-old. His passion for great stories continued all through childhood and he wrote stories he and his friends could act out. Books, comic books, movies and television were sustenance for Dustin’s growing imagination. When combined with his love for meticulous detail and passion for storytelling, his imagination cultivates vivid worlds and alluring characters.
He graduated high school with a major in sarcasm and a utility belt loaded down with useful skills. In his video journalism studies, he learned how to frame a scene, edit, and put together local interest pieces for the school’s news channel. In web design, he learned programs like Dreamweaver and Photoshop, as well as writing daily news articles for the school’s website. Dustin went on to use his technical knowledge and fast typing to obtain jobs in the IT industry while he continued to hone his storytelling skills.
In 2017, he earned a Bachelor of Fine Art’s degree in Creative Writing at Full Sail University where Dustin was named the class Salutatorian and his efforts were recognized with the Advanced Achievement Award as well as four Course Director awards.
Dustin enjoys writing comedies, suspense, and action-adventure stories. Currently, Dustin is juggling a number of projects including Reflections, a supernatural, urban fantasy comic book series with steam punk and noir inspirations.
In June of 2018, he started a podcast dedicated to bringing out the positive in geekdom called, Geek-Men and the Masters of the ThunderNerds. The show’s motto being, “the things you love, without all the hate.” The following year, that geekdom grew and expanded into another creative outlet while re-igniting an old passion–painting–that’s when ThunderNerd Customs was born. Dustin focuses on creating custom figures and painting 3D printed parts designed for the Mythic Legions action figure line.
When Dustin isn’t working, painting, podcasting, co-editing Aphotic Realm Magazine, or studying his craft, he mediates arguments between his wife and their spunky daughters.
Dustin Schyler Yoak 