Max Rayneard is a South African scholar, teacher, theatre maker, and writer. He has collaborated with veterans, military family members, and war-affected people across America since 2007.  A Fulbright Scholarship brought him to the United States and the University of Oregon in 2004. He earned a PhD in Comparative Literature in 2011 with a dissertation on the literary, theatrical, and pedagogical implications of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and would go on to teach Anglophone African Literature at Colgate University (2011-2014).   While at the University of Oregon, beginning in 2007, he cocreated the process and aesthetic for what would become The Telling Project, a national performing arts non-profit founded by Jonathan Wei. The Telling Project stages stories as told by veterans, military families and other war-affected persons.  From 2014-2018, Rayneard served as The Telling Project’s Senior Writer/Producer and Director of Research and Outcomes.  He has written, produced, and/or directed more than 40 Telling Project productions all over the United States in church halls, community college auditoriums, small regional theatres, as well as such esteemed venues as the Great Hall in The Library of Congress, The Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, and Houston’s Alley Theatre. His work was been acknowledged and supported by various awards and grants, including a University of Texas at Austin Humanities Institute Community Sabbatical Grant (2015-2016), a Pulsar award for “Best Original Script” for Telling:  Lansing (2016). Telling: Houston was the subject of a Congressional Commendation by Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (2017). For a sense of The Telling Project’s work, please watch Twin Cities Public Television 2016 documentary Minnesota Remembers Vietnam: The Telling Project. In 2016, Rayneard received a National Endowment for the Humanities Grant for "Planting the Oar," a literature-based discussion series between military veterans and civilians under the auspices of The Telling Project. He designed, implemented, and administered the program between 2016 and 2018. In the Fall of 2018, Rayneard joined the faculty of the Honors College at the University of Houston. He teaches in the core Human Situation curriculum, the Medicine & Society minor, and the Creative Work minor. He is the founding director of the FrameWorks, an undergraduate humanities research program, and edits its dedicated journal.  He continued his work with veterans during the Covid-era as the Academic Director Clemente Veterans Initiative: Houston (2019, 2021), a National Endowment for the Humanities funded program of the Clemente Course in the Humanities. This is where he met the Executive Director of Artists-in-Arms, Amelia Templeton and is grateful to play a part in her vision.