Ready Reader One explores the many ways literature depicts, engages with, and imagines videogames and gamers. The diverse group of authors included in this collection take an expansive view of "videogame literature," with essays that consider written works ranging from life writing to speculative fiction to videogame guides created for the internet. In an age of ever-increasing gamification, in which gaming literacy is important to understanding popular culture and technological power, Ready Reader One examines the role of videogame literature in explaining not only how we play videogames, but how we read and write about them.

About the Author
Megan Amber Condis is assistant professor of communication studies at Texas Tech University and the author of Gaming Masculinity: Trolls, Fake Geeks, and the Gendered Battle for Online Culture. She serves on the editorial boards of Resilience: A Journal of the Environmental Humanities and Journal of Gaming and Virtual Worlds.

Mike Sell is professor of English at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of The Avant-Garde: Race, Religion, War and Modern American Drama: Playwriting in the 1960s, and coauthor of Systemic Dramaturgy: A Handbook for the Digital Age.

Reviews
Ready Reader One curates a lively and playful collection of essays, perspectives, and stories that redefine gaming, gaming as literature, and alternative (and often underrepresented) definitions of what it means to be a gamer. Ready Reader One is earnest, accessible, colorful, and definitely teachable: Press Start to Begin!" - Edmond Chang, associate professor of English, Ohio University

"Focused on 'videogame literature,' this collection not only addresses a significant void in the study of videogames and culture but also compellingly argues for the political urgency of critical engagements with gaming literacies." - Timothy J. Welsh, managing editor, Journal of Games Criticism

"From close readings of novels and life writing that represent the experience of gameplay, to detailed studies of game walkthroughs as a genre, these brilliant essays will sharpen our sensitivity to the many, and sometimes unexpected, places we might read games around us." - Alistair Brown, assistant professor of digital humanities and modern literature, Durham University, UK



Book Information
ISBN 9780807180891
Author Megan Amber Condis
Format Hardback
Page Count 358
Imprint Louisiana State University Press
Publisher Louisiana State University Press
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 24mm