The first place I published outside my blog was a website named Bitmob. Anyone could write there and have their post put onto a community feed. The Bitmob editors would then pick the best posts, give them a professional edit, and publish the posts onto their front page right alongside the content written by the Bitmob staff. Seeing my posts regularly promoted to the front page of Bitmob is what gave me the confidence to begin seeking paid work.
I started writing a weekly opinion column for Bitmob called “First Person” in 2011. I sold the column to the Village Voice’s gaming blog Joystick Division, and later to The Escapist. Listing all the columns on my Published Work page didn’t make sense to me, but here’s a list of some of my favorite pieces from First Person:
Saying Goodbye to Vault Girl – Loving a character so much, you can’t bear to finish their game.
Kim Possible Taught Me What A Game Is – The joy of opening yourself to all the possibilities of what a game can be.
Little League Trained Me For Battlefield 3 – In baseball or Battlefield, teamwork is teamwork.
Dear Esther Is Beautifully Ordinary – Dear Esther may play like a game but it can also read like a book.
Journey Is A Mirror – A Journey with a friend is a Journey enjoyed.
I am also republishing some of the First Person columns from Joystick Division into Punching Snakes, in preparation for the day that JD closes. Those republished columns will be filed under their own heading as I get to them.