Chapter: About the Author

Veurdgel Walter is a Caribbean-born author, educator, and instructional designer whose work explores identity, power, and knowledge through speculative storytelling. Raised in Curaçao, he grew up thinking and dreaming in Papiamentu while navigating school systems that privileged Dutch and English as markers of intelligence. That early experience of constant translation-between languages, cultures, and expectations-shaped both his teaching philosophy and his fiction.

He holds a B.A. in Journalism and Mass Communication from Point Park University and an M.S. in Multimedia Technology from Duquesne University, specializing in digital media, instructional design, and interactive storytelling. For nearly two decades, Veurdgel has worked across education, media, and corporate learning, designing experiences that transform complex ideas into accessible, human-centered narratives.

Veurdgel has taught in Curaçao, Colombia, the Netherlands, and the United States as an IB educator, English professor, and instructional designer. His classrooms-both physical and digital-center language, literacy, media, and critical thinking, with a strong focus on empowering students from historically marginalized backgrounds. Across borders and systems, he has observed a recurring pattern: students are asked to master content while quietly negotiating which parts of themselves are allowed to exist.

That tension lies at the heart of The Mystery of the Phantom Castle.

The novel is rooted in lived experience-his own, his students', and his family's. A pivotal moment came when his eight-year-old son, reading well above grade level in English, was nearly placed in special education in the Netherlands simply because he did not speak Dutch at home. His intelligence was mistaken for deficiency, despite his ability to reason deeply, design experiments, and explain complex ideas. The experience clarified for Veurdgel how institutions often confuse difference with incapacity.

Using science-fantasy, The Mystery of the Phantom Castle makes visible the quiet influence of colonial frameworks on language, creativity, and self-worth. The Phantom Castle symbolizes suppressed histories and ways of knowing-not erased, but waiting to be recognized. The story's heroes struggle not because they lack intelligence, but because they are denied permission: to be different, to belong fully, and to define knowledge on their own terms.

Veurdgel writes for readers who were never told they were already enough-for multilingual thinkers, students labeled "behind," and educators seeking to recognize brilliance where systems see only deviation. Today, he continues to teach, design learning experiences, and write speculative fiction that bridges education, storytelling, and social critique, guided by a single mission: to affirm that intelligence is not singular, identity is not a flaw, and the world is far larger than we are taught to believe.