Eric Freeze – författare

Enslaved by their own fears, the characters in this riveting collection are straining for redemption. Their choices reflect the well-worn patterns we carve for ourselves through our idiosyncrasies-our dominant traits. A basketball coach teaches moral ambiguity; a divorcee clutches at sanity; a mother struggles with her son's paternity; a childless man regrets his youthful onanism. Through their shared experiences these tangible characters undergo the sad, hilarious search for wholeness and security. Set in the stark isolated landscape of Southern Alberta, Eric Freeze's debut collection is a deftly-crafted study of desperate mortals careening through their liminal moments, grasping for certainty. "An honest record, a way to trace the passage of time and understand the little stories of our past"--Boston Review "Freeze Builds his sentences with the intricate grace of the snowflakes so often falling from the sky in these stories, all of them peculiarly sad and funny and beautiful."--Ben Percy "The fiction in Dominant Traits seems grounded in the quirkiness that is the everyday, that is where we learn about the human heart and its odd acts of defiance, generosity, courage, ineptitude."--Darrell Spencer "Excellent stories... Freeze produces realistic, believable people and delves deeply into their psyches to create truly enjoyable character studies."-Booklist

A collage-like mash-up of personal anecdote, popular culture, masculinity, sports, and parenting, Hemingway on a Bike takes readers through the many and varied twists and turns of the life and mind of its author, Eric Freeze. Delving into obsessions and experiences, Freeze’s essays display a keen intelligence with insights on topics as diverse as Mormonism and foosball, Angry Birds and professional wrestling, superheroes and freebirthing, Ernest Hemingway and Star Trek.“Carnecopia” mashes experiences fishing and snorkeling with an exhibit at Monaco’s oceanographic museum to comment on how human beings unwittingly enact harm on their environment. “Bolt” explores the author’s fascination with sprinting and shares moments in France and the Midwest, where the words “to bolt” sometimes have unforeseen consequences. “Supergirl” plays on the childhood fascination with superheroes juxtaposed with adulthood manifestations of gendered expectations.By turns playful, poignant, celebratory, and searching, Hemingway on a Bike meanders through ruminations on a number of subjects, and these reflections combine to dissect identity, belonging, and migration in an age when borders and boundaries, whatever the type, are continually transgressed and traversed.

A 2024 Choice Outstanding Academic TitleAgainst the backdrop of a hyper-competitive AAA industry and the perception that it is a world reserved for top programmers and hard-core ‘gamers’, Story Mode offers an accessible entry-point for all into writing and designing complex and emotionally affecting narrative video games. The first textbook to combine game design with creative writing techniques, this much-needed resource makes the skills necessary to consume and create digital and multi-modal stories attainable and fun. Appealing to the growing calls for greater inclusivity and access to this important contemporary apparatus of expression, this book offers low-cost, accessible tools and instruction that bridge the knowledge gap for creative writers, showing them how they can merge their skill-set with the fundamentals of game creation and empowering them to produce their own games which push stories beyond the page and the written word. Broken down into 4 sections to best orientate writers from any technological background to the strategies of game production, this book offers: - Contextual and introductory chapters exploring the history and variety of various game genres. - Discussions of how traditional creative writing approaches to character, plot, world-building and dialogue can be utilised in game writing.- An in-depth overview of game studies concepts such as game construction, interactivity, audience engagement, empathy, real-world change and representation that orientate writers to approach games from the perspective of a designer.- A whole section on the practical elements of work-shopping, tools, collaborative writing as well as extended exercises guiding readers through long-term, collaborative, game-centred projects using suites and tools like Twine, Audacity, Bitsy, and GameMaker. Featuring detailed craft lessons, hands-on exercises and case studies, this is the ultimate guide for creative writers wanting to diversify into writing for interactive, digital and contemporary modes of storytelling. Designed not to lay out a roadmap to a successful career in the games industry but to empower writers to experiment in a medium previously regarded as exclusive, this book demystifies the process behind creating video games, orienting readers to a wide range of new possible forms and inspiring them to challenge mainstream notions of what video games can be and become.

A 2024 Choice Outstanding Academic TitleAgainst the backdrop of a hyper-competitive AAA industry and the perception that it is a world reserved for top programmers and hard-core ‘gamers’, Story Mode offers an accessible entry-point for all into writing and designing complex and emotionally affecting narrative video games. The first textbook to combine game design with creative writing techniques, this much-needed resource makes the skills necessary to consume and create digital and multi-modal stories attainable and fun. Appealing to the growing calls for greater inclusivity and access to this important contemporary apparatus of expression, this book offers low-cost, accessible tools and instruction that bridge the knowledge gap for creative writers, showing them how they can merge their skill-set with the fundamentals of game creation and empowering them to produce their own games which push stories beyond the page and the written word. Broken down into 4 sections to best orientate writers from any technological background to the strategies of game production, this book offers: - Contextual and introductory chapters exploring the history and variety of various game genres. - Discussions of how traditional creative writing approaches to character, plot, world-building and dialogue can be utilised in game writing.- An in-depth overview of game studies concepts such as game construction, interactivity, audience engagement, empathy, real-world change and representation that orientate writers to approach games from the perspective of a designer.- A whole section on the practical elements of work-shopping, tools, collaborative writing as well as extended exercises guiding readers through long-term, collaborative, game-centred projects using suites and tools like Twine, Audacity, Bitsy, and GameMaker. Featuring detailed craft lessons, hands-on exercises and case studies, this is the ultimate guide for creative writers wanting to diversify into writing for interactive, digital and contemporary modes of storytelling. Designed not to lay out a roadmap to a successful career in the games industry but to empower writers to experiment in a medium previously regarded as exclusive, this book demystifies the process behind creating video games, orienting readers to a wide range of new possible forms and inspiring them to challenge mainstream notions of what video games can be and become.

A 2024 Choice Outstanding Academic TitleAgainst the backdrop of a hyper-competitive AAA industry and the perception that it is a world reserved for top programmers and hard-core ''gamers'', Story Mode offers an accessible entry-point for all into writing and designing complex and emotionally affecting narrative video games. The first textbook to combine game design with creative writing techniques, this much-needed resource makes the skills necessary to consume and create digital and multi-modal stories attainable and fun. Appealing to the growing calls for greater inclusivity and access to this important contemporary apparatus of expression, this book offers low-cost, accessible tools and instruction that bridge the knowledge gap for creative writers, showing them how they can merge their skill-set with the fundamentals of game creation and empowering them to produce their own games which push stories beyond the page and the written word. Broken down into 4 sections to best orientate writers from any technological background to the strategies of game production, this book offers: - Contextual and introductory chapters exploring the history and variety of various game genres. - Discussions of how traditional creative writing approaches to character, plot, world-building and dialogue can be utilised in game writing. - An in-depth overview of game studies concepts such as game construction, interactivity, audience engagement, empathy, real-world change and representation that orientate writers to approach games from the perspective of a designer. - A whole section on the practical elements of work-shopping, tools, collaborative writing as well as extended exercises guiding readers through long-term, collaborative, game-centred projects using suites and tools like Twine, Audacity, Bitsy, and GameMaker. Featuring detailed craft lessons, hands-on exercises and case studies, this is the ultimate guide for creative writers wanting to diversify into writing for interactive, digital and contemporary modes of storytelling. Designed not to lay out a roadmap to a successful career in the games industry but to empower writers to experiment in a medium previously regarded as exclusive, this book demystifies the process behind creating video games, orienting readers to a wide range of new possible forms and inspiring them to challenge mainstream notions of what video games can be and become.

A 2024 Choice Outstanding Academic TitleAgainst the backdrop of a hyper-competitive AAA industry and the perception that it is a world reserved for top programmers and hard-core ''gamers'', Story Mode offers an accessible entry-point for all into writing and designing complex and emotionally affecting narrative video games. The first textbook to combine game design with creative writing techniques, this much-needed resource makes the skills necessary to consume and create digital and multi-modal stories attainable and fun. Appealing to the growing calls for greater inclusivity and access to this important contemporary apparatus of expression, this book offers low-cost, accessible tools and instruction that bridge the knowledge gap for creative writers, showing them how they can merge their skill-set with the fundamentals of game creation and empowering them to produce their own games which push stories beyond the page and the written word. Broken down into 4 sections to best orientate writers from any technological background to the strategies of game production, this book offers: - Contextual and introductory chapters exploring the history and variety of various game genres. - Discussions of how traditional creative writing approaches to character, plot, world-building and dialogue can be utilised in game writing. - An in-depth overview of game studies concepts such as game construction, interactivity, audience engagement, empathy, real-world change and representation that orientate writers to approach games from the perspective of a designer. - A whole section on the practical elements of work-shopping, tools, collaborative writing as well as extended exercises guiding readers through long-term, collaborative, game-centred projects using suites and tools like Twine, Audacity, Bitsy, and GameMaker. Featuring detailed craft lessons, hands-on exercises and case studies, this is the ultimate guide for creative writers wanting to diversify into writing for interactive, digital and contemporary modes of storytelling. Designed not to lay out a roadmap to a successful career in the games industry but to empower writers to experiment in a medium previously regarded as exclusive, this book demystifies the process behind creating video games, orienting readers to a wide range of new possible forms and inspiring them to challenge mainstream notions of what video games can be and become.