Steve Guntli
Steve Guntli is a writer, actor, podcaster, and editor with extensive experience as a journalist, a photographer, and a team leader.
Born in California in 1983, Steve was put up for adoption at a young age, and was taken in by Steve and Joyce Guntli in 1985. In 1992, the Guntlis relocated from the Bay Area to deep in the mountains of Colorado, where Steve grew up in relative isolation, at least 20 miles from the nearest store or sign or civilization. The family built up a small ranch with horses, goats, and all manner of house pets, from dogs and cats to lizards and parakeets, where Steve learned to love and care for a wide variety of animals.
As a child, Steve had a vivid imagination and a passion for art, from movies and books to music and video games. From a young age, he wrote short stories, drew cartoons, and staged elaborate plays for his siblings. This love of creativity (and generally goofy nature) carried over to high school, where Steve became active in theater and discovered a love of performing. Steve studied theater in college and built life-long friendships while cultivating more sophisticated theatrical technique.
While financial difficulties forced him to leave school before completing his theater degree, Steve decided to go back to school to pursue a degree in journalism in 2010. After starting the program at Metro State College in Denver, Steve transferred to the Pacific Northwest, enrolling at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington. At WWU, Steve would be an active and reliable contributor to student publications; starting as a writer and photographer, he eventually took a post as Copy Editor for the student paper, The Western Front, and was soon promoted to Editor-In-Chief.
After graduating with a degree in Visual Journalism and a minor in Film Studies in 2014, Steve was fortunate to immediately secure a position in his field, taking a job as a staff reporter for The Northern Light, a small weekly newspaper in Blaine, Washington. Within only three months, Steve was promoted to Editor-in-Chief, and for the next two years he was one of the driving forces behind the paper, writing most of the news stories and feature pieces, responding to breaking news, taking all photographs, and laying out the paper each week. He would also conduct weekly staff meetings to source and assign stories, plan out future issues, and build rapport with the three staff members under him. For his efforts, Steve earned a company-record number of awards from the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association, personally taking home more than 20 awards between 2015 and 2016 for news writing, criticism, humor writing, and photography.
In 2016, Steve was offered a position as a writer and editor for Talent, Inc., an up-and-coming resume writing company based out of New York. While stepping away from journalism and his work family at The Northern Light was a difficult decision, the ability to work from home and provide a very necessary service to people around the world was an exciting opportunity, and Steve has worked for Talent ever since.
During this time, Steve once again became active in local theater, becoming a regular featured player for the Bellingham Theater Guild. Steve won major roles in shows like "Monty Python's Spamalot," "Anything Goes," "White Christmas," "The Mousetrap," "And Then There Were None," "La Cage Aux Folles," and "Noises Off," for which he won Best Actor at the Bentley Awards. For his multiple roles in "Almost, Maine," Steve was honored with the Best Actor award at the Washington Community Theater Festival, recognizing productions from the entire state. In addition to Theater Guild work, Steve also starred in the original production "Top of the Food Chain" and appeared in two independent films, "Just Like the Men" and "Reunion of Champions."
In 2017, as an avid podcast listener and fan, Steve decided to start his own podcast with his friend Woody Ciskowski. The show, Ultra 64, was a video game podcast in which Steve and Woody attempted to play through every game on the Nintendo 64 system. Launching in November 2017, the show found a small but passionate fanbase and accrued more than half a million downloads through organic word-of-mouth alone. After the Nintendo 64 catalog was completed in early 2020, Steve and Woody continued on with a new system for a second series called Wii Universe, in which they look at the catalog for the Wii U, Nintendo's most notable failure. While that system didn't have the same cache with gamers, the hosts were able to retain all of their audience. The show was acclaimed by fans for Steve and Woody's easy rapport, quick wits, and deep knowledge of their subjects. The show enabled Steve to take on other podcasting projects as both a guest and a co-host, and he's since gone on to appear on popular shows like Vidjagame Apocalypse, Thirty Twenty Ten, and Talking Terrific Television.
Steve relocated to Austin, Texas in 2022, where he continues to be an active podcaster and has gotten involved with the city's thriving improv comedy community, performing regularly on the main stage of the acclaimed Hideout Theater. In his free time, Steve is an avid runner with 10 half-marathons under his belt and is a dedicated movie lover, reader, and singer.