Alongside my day jobs, I’ve built a few things of my own: a podcast, a writing community, a book, and an open-access press.
Podcast
The Downtown Writers Jam
The Downtown Writers Jam Podcast started in 2000 as a streaming audio show at Wired and grew into the least literary literary podcast on the Internet. From The Bunker in Pittsburgh, I hosted hour-long, one-on-one interviews that took authors on a freewheeling trip through their lives, from childhood into adulthood. The conversations touched on contemporary issues, weird pop culture asides, and, more often than not, why each of us writes. In 2021, the show joined the Solid Listen Podcast Network, an experiment in bringing new voices and a general niceness to podcasting. A year later, I added two short-form series. The Jam Sessions were focused conversations with nonfiction authors who had tackled difficult subjects. The After Party was a quick Q&A, half storytelling and half cocktail party. The video series has closed, but the full archive lives at thewritersjam.com.
Writing community · 2014–2018
The Geeky Press
From 2014 to 2018, The Geeky Press brought writers together for workshops, retreats, publications, and events, giving the city’s writers a place to find each other. What started as a gathering place grew into Indianapolis’ largest independent writing community, with more than 800 active members.
The weekly workshops were the heart of it. More than 325 writers came through them over four years, sharing drafts and pushing each other’s work forward. Our retreat programs gave another 65 authors dedicated time and space to write.
The work showed up on the page, too. Those gatherings produced four anthologies, two literary magazines, and a writing podcast that reached more than 2,000 listeners and connected creative voices across Indiana.
Book · 2003 and 2014 editions
Dungeons & Dreamers
A Story of How Computer Games Created a Global Community
In 2002, John Borland and I set out to write about online computer games and how Dungeons & Dragons shaped nearly 30 years of their development. When the first edition came out in 2003, the story we wanted to tell hadn’t ended yet, so we promised to come back to it. In 2014, we did.
The second edition follows the designers, developers, and players who turned the fantasy worlds of Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson’s 1974 tabletop game into the virtual worlds and communities behind today’s digital entertainment. It’s a history of online games, the Internet, and what it means to live and thrive in virtual communities.
IGN called it “one of the more delightfully anecdotal books on video game history.”
Open-access publisher · Founding editor
Play Story Press
I was a founding editor of Play Story Press, a diamond open-access publishing consortium that carries forward 20 years of open-access work. Neither authors nor readers pay fees, and contributors keep their intellectual property.
The press publishes peer-reviewed books, journals, conference proceedings, and reports on how stories and play matter across fields, from education and health to design and media studies. Its authors range from traditional academics to practitioners. Five imprints cover scholarly research, short “why it matters” singles, partner reports, student work, and books for and about kids.
Every title is a free download under a Creative Commons license, and print copies are made on demand. The publications are collected in The Strong National Museum of Play’s library and archives.
