Writing

Stuff that I have written.

  • Worldcon schedule

    Hours Categories Writing
    Comments 15 Comments

    My Worldcon schedule:

    Friday August 25th, 10am: “World of Warcrack” panel, ACC 212-A
    Yep, I am moderating a panel about WoW. The other folks on the panel include Mike Stemmle, co-designer of classic LucasArts games like Sam & Max and Escape from Monkey Island; William B. Fawcett, author of The Fleet series of books; Justin Lloyd of Otaku no Zoku, and Scott Campbell, who is apparently a game developer but I can’t quite figure out which Scott Campbell it is. 🙂

    The panel description reads,

    Massively Multiplayer Online Games have long been popular but none have ever been as popular as World of Warcraft. (At its height, “Everquest” had fewer than one million subscribers; WoW has about six million.) Why are these sorts of games popular and what is it about WoW that makes it king?

    Saturday August 26th, 3pm: Autographing session, ACC ATGR6.
    The Autographing area is in the exhibits area between art show and dealers room. I’m opposite the likes of Harlan Ellison, and who knows if they will even carry my book at any of the dealers at Worldcon. But if they do, or even if they don’t, bring one, and I’ll draw a penguin in it. I’ll be happy to sign game boxes too, I suppose. I imagine there will be no line, because nobody there will have the slightest clue who I am. 🙂

    I will probably get up there on Thursday evening and wander around in a daze at my first-ever Worldcon, and drive back down sometime on Saturday evening.

  • I am on the cover of Harper’s

    Hours Categories Game talk, Writing
    Comments 36 Comments

    Which is slightly shocking. 🙂

    That is alongside Steven Johnson, Jane Avrich, and Thomas de Zengotita, of course, not all by myself. And the redoubtable Bill Wasik moderating. It’s the September issue.

    It’s a Forum piece entitled “Grand Theft Education,” and the question is literacy in the age of video games, seen through the lens of whether video games could be made to teach writing. I’ll say that this was one of the most stimulating conversations I have had in years…

    A few very very brief samples to whet the appetite:

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  • The Sunday Poem: The Genius Learns about Criticism

    Hours Categories The Sunday Poem
    Comments 12 Comments

    When he first understood
    That when he read a book he grasped
    The meaning of it, the gestalt
    (if he had known the word),
    He realized he was set for life.
    His family said, “You’ll be a writer
    Or a teacher,” and he thought
    They were the same thing,
    And he said, “Cool.”

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