About
I study games, and I flipflop between using games as a lens on the Gothic and the Gothic as a lens on games (and other things).
I sell, host and demo games through an award-winning indie bookshop in Wales.
I make and help make games, sometimes with the San Jenaro Co-Op and sometimes as my solo brand Malediction Games.
Malediction Games is a hex on the RPG industry, a curse levelled against those who would destroy us. It also sounds metal as hell.
I detest autobiography (unless it’s talking about My Time With This Game) so I’m afraid that’s your lot.Education
- PGCE (DTLLS) – University of Plymouth, 2009
- MA English & American Studies – University of Manchester, 2008
- BA English & Creative and Professional Writing – University of Wolverhampton, 2007
Work Shared in CORE
Conference papers
Other Publications
- ‘The evolving genre of the Vampire RPGs’, in the Palgrave Handbook of Contemporary Gothic (ed. Clive Bloom). Palgrave Macmillan, 2020.
- Reviews: Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice and Life Is Strange: Before The Storm in Vector, Best of 2017 special (British Science Fiction Association)
- ‘The Conqueror Worm: Eddison, Modernism, and the War to End All Wars’, in Baptism of Fire: The Birth of the Modern British Fantastic in World War I (ed. Janet Brennan Croft). Mythopoeic Press: 2014.
- Review: ‘Tree of Salvation: Yggdrasil and the Cross in the North’, Mythlore 34.1
- Review: ‘The Riddles of The Hobbit‘, Mythlore 32.2
Projects
Currently working on:
- ‘Gamifying Fictions of Defeat’ (paper for Studies on Gothic Fiction, special Lovecraft edition)
- ‘Sticky, Crunchy, Fluffy, Slippery: a model for dissonance and harmony in tabletop RPGs’ (with Dr. Lucy Baker, Griffith University)
Memberships
Current:
- International Gothic Association
- San Jenaro Co-Op
Former:
- Green Party of England and Wales
- Mythopoeic Society
- National Association for the Teaching of English
- National Association of Schoolmasters / Union of Women Teachers
- Universities and Colleges Union