And so ends a year that I certainly couldn’t have predicted. For me, 2022 was the year I started writing for the public — including about #ttrpg for @[email protected], source of this hoodie (thanks @[email protected])
In this last thread of the year, some notes on my essays — & what’s to come.
I have tenure, but every year I write up an Annual Report for my chair to review (last year it was 71 p.). I'd just taught my 1st #ttrpg course that fall.
In my Plan for 2022 I said I was going to get work done on my book BEFORE FANFICTION & "write more for public"
That piece came out as part of The Rambling's Valentine's Issue -- fitting, as it is an essay about love: both my fascination with the excitement of a new media form, & its capacity to show moments of real human feeling.
https://the-rambling.com/2022/02/12/ssue-valentine-2022-friedman/
Emily Friedman explores friendship and pleasure in roleplaying games, as viewer and player. An introduction to "actual play" livestreaming on Twitch and YouTube, including the shows produced by Critical Role, HyperRPG, and Dimension20, and its connection to eighteenth-century media experiences. A meditation on the sympathies between the "All Work, No Play" lives of creators of all kinds, including academics. Contains spoilers for the Vox Machina campaign of Critical Role.
But none of the lit-mag style pitches worked out.
Meanwhile, before that piece came out @[email protected] emailed me about contributing to @[email protected] any insights I might have about #CriticalRole -- but spam filters ate it, so we wouldn't actually make a connection for months.
My first piece was commissioned in May & came out in September -- on the changing look of #ttrpg Actual Play. I got to talk to tons of folks, & found "Hi I'm working on a piece for Polygon" combined with my cred as an academic was a useful combo.
https://www.polygon.com/23334732/how-the-first-decade-of-actual-play-has-defined-the-template
It meant that when @[email protected] started a new series inspired by #Austen #Regency & #Bridgerton, I could get screeners & combine my desire to elevate Actual Play AND communicate about the 18th century's real contours & pressures.
I'm so proud that I'm not the only 18th centuryist working on #ACoFaF: not only did I build my fall grad course around Austen & games so I could teach it, I got connected to splendid early career researchers thinking deeply about the show. (see #ASECS23)
https://www.polygon.com/23389593/dimension-20-court-fey-flowers-finale-review-analysis
I also got to write about #Austen on the video game side of things for @[email protected]'s Video Game Fashion Week -- and build on the research @[email protected] & I have been doing since 2020 on representation in Austen-inspired games. This essay was for her.
https://www.polygon.com/23401231/jane-austen-video-game-diversity-bridgerton
Dimension 20: Neverafter, a new horror-themed Dungeons & Dragons actual play series, is not messing around. Battles in this actual play have gone poorly before... but not like this. We chatted with game master Brennan Lee Mulligan about tilting the scales against some of the best players around.
My colleagues cannot criticize me for abandoning peer-reviewed publication, though I think a lot about when & why. My essay on #Austen and the Amateurs appeared in AUSTEN AFTER 200, brainchild of @[email protected] with coeditors Annika Bautz & @[email protected].
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-08372-3_4
In 2023 I will continue to write for Polygon -- I have one piece with a looming deadline, & others with longer lead times. I hope to write more pieces like "Fantasy Friends" that introduce #ttrpg actual play to thoughtful literary audiences.
But most of all, I'm writing my book.
Books serve many purposes: I'm lucky to have a secure job where a book is expected for promotion. It's not REQUIRED that the book is ever read.
But I want to be read. It's tricky to be academically fruitful AND engaging to many readers.
I think I got better at that this year.
So, thanks to all of you who read and engage -- I hope wherever we end up in the times ahead, that will still be possible.
I am grateful to all those -- known & unknown to me -- whose stories I have been able to help tell, amplify, better appreciate. If I have a beat, that's it.
Note: according to the metrics of my job, this thread is silly, “unproductive.”
But I’m trying to learn from those whose work I’ve studied for over a decade: from manuscript authors who avoided commercial print to those who use new media to find some kind of creative freedom.
Dr. Emily Friedman
James