Amanda VanHiel

Amanda VanHiel is an actor, cosplayer, and video game journalist - or as she likes to call herself, a professional nerd - from the Atlanta, Georgia area. She began acting in community theatre at the age of 12, and fell in love with the art. Graduating from Kennesaw State University in 2009, she earned a B.S. in Communication Media Studies. Shortly after college, she got into cosplay, portraying her favorite sci-fi, anime, and video game characters. She joined the Zelda Universe team in 2013 where she is assistant news editor and anchor for Zelda News, ZU's weekly segment on the ZeldaUniverseTV YouTube channel. When Amanda isn't writing about video games, talking about video games, or dressing up as video game characters, she's playing them. Her favorite is The Legend of Zelda series, and she's also a huge fan of The Last of Us, Pokemon, Uncharted, and Kingdom Hearts. In 2011, Amanda married her husband Dan VanHiel and together they have a beautiful furball of a cat named Bentley, and foster all the stray kittens that show up at their door.