Writing

Below is a nearly full accounting of all the writing I’ve done for websites and magazines (including the one I ran for a while).

SUBSTACK:

3/7/2022-Present: On The Off Chance You Want My Opinion, a ~weekly substack, mostly about books.

RECENT FREELANCE WORK:

8/5/2022: “The Warrior-Cop Ethos and the Stand-Around Cops in Uvalde,” for The Bulwark

CURRENT PODCAST:

1/29/2018-Present: The Big Read Cast, a quarterly big-books podcast (with occasional bonus episodes!)

PREVIOUS BLOG PROJECTS

“Bill’s Book Blog,” a project documenting my 2021 project to read 104 books (which I did, though I stopped writing the blog about halfway through).

“The Silliest Take of the Week Project,” an on-again/off-again project making fun of bad Internet takes.

FICTION

9/17/15: “Cassilda’s Songs,” (an exercise in writing a King in Yellow story) for Unwinnable Weekly.

5/29/15: “The Waitress,” for Unwinnable Weekly.

OH NO POLITICS

6/23/16: Guns, Abortions, and Rule of Law

FULL-LENGTH MEDIA CRITICISM (MOSTLY VIDEOGAMES)

For ReadySet (RIP):

7/26/2018: Review of The Banner Saga 3

For Kotaku:

1/3/2017: After My Dad Died, He Left Behind Thousands of Hours of Civilization Save Files (Originally posted at The Ontological Geek as My Name is Ozymandias)

For Five Out of Ten Magazine:

Issue #13 (Spring 2015): “A Burnt Offering” & “Random Number Gods”

Issue #5: (Fall 2013): “Hunted” & “The Game”

Issue #1 (Fall 2012): “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” and “+5 To Diplomacy”

For Unwinnable Monthly:

10/16/2017: Issue #96: “I, Murderspy” (On Mass Effect’s SPECTREs, and why they make me uncomfortable)

1/20/2017: Issue #87: “Sides” (On FTL, rebellion, and Donald Trump)

Selected Pieces For The Ontological Geek:

4/28/2017: What It’s Like to Play: Devil Daggers

11/13/16: My Name is Ozymandias (on what to do with my late father’s videogame saves, and what they mean about his life).

2/12/16: Charmed, I’m Sure (an examination of why “Charm” mechanics in videogame RPGs are lousy game design). (Selected for Critical Distance’s This Week in Video Game Blogging)

1/29/16: Jon Blow and the Need for Genius (Selected for Critical Distance’s This Week in Video Game Blogging)

8/17/15: What It’s Like to Play: Crypt of the NecroDancer

5/20/15-7/14/15: 11 Days of Marvel. (A series in collaboration with Erin McNeil, talking about each MCU movie released so far.)

2/19/15: Bill’s Thoughts On: Jagannath (A collection of Weird Fiction short stories by Swedish author Karin Tidbeck)

2/13/15: Short Review of Zoya Street’s Delay

9/24/14: Chainsaw Catharsis

6/19/14: You Must Stuff Your Fridge Before Venturing Forth (Selected for Critical Distance’s This Week in Video Game Blogging)

1/9/14: Moral Choice in FTL (Selected for Critical Distance’s This Week in Video Game Blogging)

8/16/13: Good Luck, Commander: XCOM and Pacific Rim (Selected for Critical Distance’s This Week in Video Game Blogging)

6/25/13: Gears Grinding in the Dunes (A review of Primordia) (Selected for Critical Distance’s This Week in Video Game Blogging)

3/5/2013: The Call of Leviathan: Mass Effect and Lovecraft (Included on Tentaclii’s “Open Lovecraft” List)

1/25/2013: A Eulogy for Kuranes (Selected for Critical Distance’s This Week in Video Game Blogging)

7/3/2012: On the Realism of Sexism

6/5/2012: You Must Gather Your Party (Selected for Critical Distance’s This Week in Video Game Blogging)

3/16/2012: On Endings

1/25/2012: Catherine Chokes On Its Own Aspirations (Selected for Critical Distance’s This Week in Video Game Blogging)

12/15/2011: You’re a Legend, Mr. Wayne

8/18/2011: Tensions in Bastion

7/21/2011: A Rose By Any Other Name

1/27/2011: Freedom and Failure in BioShock

For Nightmare Mode: (now defunct, links are to an archive some generous soul has been maintaining since late 2013):

3/18/13: Dwarf Fortress as Spectator Sport (Selected for Critical Distance’s This Week in Video Game Blogging)

11/26/2012: What Games Teach us About Guns (Selected for Critical Distance’s This Week in Video Game Blogging, Rock Paper Shotgun’s Sunday Papers and Critical Distance’s This Year in Video Game Blogging 2012, reposted by request on my blog at Gamasutra)

7/24/2012: Magic Needs To Be Mysterious and Unpredictable In Games (Selected for Critical Distance’s This Week in Video Game Blogging and Rock Paper Shotgun’s Sunday Papers)

5/23/2012: I Can’t Hear Myself Talk (Selected for Critical Distance’s This Week in Video Game Blogging)

For Gamechurch:

4/12/2012: The Chantry and the Church

For Ctrl+Alt+Defeat:

5/1/2012: Games Taught Me to Love Guitars (pg. 26-27)

For Touch.My.Prints:

Issue #1 (4/30/13): Amnesia and Dishonored

SHORT STUFF

For ZAM/ReadySet (RIP):

12/13/2017: If the Skull Spider Monster That Appears at 39 Seconds in Devil Daggers Were Your Boyfriend

Squibs for The Ontological Geek

8/16/17: The Hearthstone Hover

11/15/15: My 10 Most Important Videogame Music Pieces

8/13/15: Somebody’s Watching You (On streaming horror games)

6/13/14: Dragon Age: Apologies (Worries about Dragon Age: Inquisitions) (Selected for Critical Distance’s This Week in Video Game Blogging)

5/2/14: Beast of America (On BioShock Infinite)

4/29/14: Go On Without Me (About FTL: Faster Than Light)

For Unwinnable

7/2/2018: The Ticking Clock in Cultist Simulator.

1/12/16: Contributed to their post on the death of David Bowie.

12/31/15: Two short discussions of Sunless Sea and Crypt of the NecroDancer for their Best Videogames of 2015 list.

For Haywire Magazine

2/5/16: Short reviews of Pillars of Eternity, Heroes of the Storm and Starcraft 2: Legacy of the Void, and Sunless Sea for their “Games of 2015” megapost.

2/2/15: A short review of The Banner Saga for their “Games of 2014” megapost.