Congratulations!!

SCMS needs you! The Volunteer for Service form is open now until Friday, May 8, 2026. Follow the link to find out more about these opportunities–join a Standing or Award committee, or be part of the Program committee and read submissions for the #SCMS27 conference in Montreal! buff.ly/8X2LhnW

Our (@mahliann.bsky.social, @marcuscarter.com, and I) book GAME STUDIES: A CRITICAL INTRODUCTION TO THE FIELD is officially OUT everywhere in the world except the US for some reason. So here is an actual thread about why we wrote it and what we were trying to achieve with it.

Late to the party, but: I co-authored an article with Paul Booth in this special issue!

So looking forward to digging into the other amazing articles here (once I resurface from grading) & recommending several to authors in a book I'm co-editing with @adriiadventures.com !

Submissions for the FSNNA 2026 #fanstudies conference are now open! Our theme this year is "Boundaries"

☑️Pick from: poster OR presentation (poster + talk)
✍️Due: Abstract, bio, keywords
⏰Deadline: Friday, May 8th, 2026

Full CFP & form here: docs.google.com/document/d/1...

📣 Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research invites authors to submit papers for issue 2/2026. 📣

Deadline: 30.06.2026

Submissions should be made through the online portal: fafnir.journal.fi/about/submis...

⏰️JUST TWO WEEKS LEFT!

Thanks so much 🥰 to everyone who's already backed the Kickstarter for TEMERAIRE: THE ROLEPLAYING GAME!💖

Magpie Games has just added the latest stretch goal: an 11x17 dragon chart featuring an array of dragons from around the world.

www.kickstarter.com/projects/mag...

New article out in Feminist Review 📢 When queer characters are written off screen, fans often mobilise rather than move on. I argue these practices are queer mnemonic labour—collective efforts to contest erasure and imagine queer futures 🏳️‍🌈 #OpenAccess at journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

so excited that @persephone.blue @mariakalberto.bsky.social @hibbythach.com, Brandon Blackburn, & my chapter on Thirsty Sword Lesbians ⚔️👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩 appears in this kickass collection!

The DePaul Pop Culture Conference theme this year is Remixing Pop Music, to be held at DePaul in Chicago on May 2. If you're interested in the theme, you can submit an idea for a presentation here (by Jan. 31): popcultureconference.com/2026-remix-p...

Designers & Dragons: Origins From the birth of roleplaying to the discovery of the Forgotten Realms, from the rise of Basic D&D to the fall of Mystara, historian Shannon Appelcline brings you the story of OD&D, Basic D&D, and AD&...

Proud to be the 221st backer 😎 on @BackerKit Crowdfunding for Designers & Dragons: Origins! www.backerkit.com/c/projects/e...

a drag queen with white hair and a blue dress has the word chance in white letters ALT: a drag queen with white hair and a blue dress has the word chance in white letters

🚨🚨LAST CHANCE TO REGISTER FOR OUR #FSNNA2025 #FanStudies CONFERENCE!!!🚨🚨

Registration closes TOMORROW (Oct 21) at 11:59pm ET‼️

You can find the registration & conference info on our REVAMPED WEBSITE at fsn-northamerica.org#Conference

A mockup of four thick books emerging from a slipcase. Colorful illustrations in gold and purple depict dragons of various ages stalking and frolicking. In the background, a blue monotone dungeon map. Caption: Designers & Dragons Origins. Now on BackerKit.

⚔️ NOW LIVE! ⚔️ Designers & Dragons: Origins!
Award-winning historian @shannonappelcline.bsky.social delves deep into the origins and design of every product TSR published for OD&D, Basic D&D, and AD&D 1E.
Pledge now and gain access to The Adventurers' Hoard
www.backerkit.com/c/projects/e...

DROW BORG Punk rock OSR RPG of venom, rebellion, and doomed drow in the depths of a corrupted Underworld. Burn bright, die loud.

I just backed DROW BORG on @kickstarter.com www.kickstarter.com/projects/adv...

Vol. 42 (2024): Fandom and Platforms | Transformative Works and Cultures Guest edited by Maria K. Alberto, Effie Sapuridis, Lesley Willard

#TWC42, published last year, is a special issue focused on Fandom and Platforms! Guest edited by @mariakalberto.bsky.social, @effietheant.bsky.social, & @lesleyawillard.bsky.social, this issue emphasizes putting forward platforms in fan studies! Read it here:

Image saying "We're Now Open!" and "Send us your submissions for the 2025 conference!" from Fan Studies Network North America

Submissions for the FSNNA 2025 #fanstudies conference are now open! Our theme this year is Reputation: Influence, Power, & Capital.

🤔Pick from: poster OR poster + talk
✍️Due: Abstract, bio, keywords
⏰Deadline: Friday, May 16

Full CFP & form here: fsn-northamerica.org/2025/04/11/g...

Call for Proposals - Degruyter Handbook of Feminist Digital Scholarship Call for Proposals - De Gruyter Handbook of Feminist Digital Scholarship: DS/DH at the Kitchen Table Edited by Anne Cong-Huyen & Kim Brillante Knight Overview This collection will bring together eme...

@purplekimchi.bsky.social and I are editing a handbook on Feminist Digital Studies/Scholarship/Humanities! If you're a feminist technologist, scholar, activist, etc., regardless of where you work or where you are in your career, we want to hear from you! CFP: docs.google.com/document/d/1...

DAY 1 of "Role-Playing the Humanities" in the Taft Research Center is upon us!

We'll be discussing (starting at 9 am):
--Student Engagement with Role-Play
--Worldbuilding and Worldmaking
--RPG Studies: The State of the Field

And at 7 pm: Play sessions!

taft.center/3Xj9OIR

@mariakalberto.bsky.social and my Dossier on “Actual Play as Actual Art” is in the latest issue of @jcmsjournal.bsky.social. So thrilled to spotlight careful readings of @dimension20.bsky.social @criticalrole.bsky.social & New York By Night by stellar scholars.

quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jcms/issues/

green, yellow, and pink graphic announcing that FSNNA is looking for new committee members and the deadline is January 31

We're delighted to announce that FSNNA is looking for new committee members!

Check out the full call & application process on the website here: fsn-northamerica.org/2025/01/17/c...

Thank you very much, Katie!! 🤩

thank you, Luisa!!

screenshot of the title page of my dissertation!

Delighted to report that my dissertation is now available open-access on ProQuest!

In it, I propose a definition of "canon" as used in and by contemporary transmedia franchises: exemplified by D&D and decades of texts about drow.

www.proquest.com/dissertation...

(dm if you'd like a PDF!)

was visited by 3 ghosts last night so I’m helping them unionize

Absolutely wild (and humbling!) to see my name come up in the latest of your very helpful roundups of recent fan studies work! Thank you very much!

New from
@mariakalberto.bsky.social & @pbooth81.bsky.social in Convergence

‘So much for the prattling of sages’: D&D gaming paratexts, Fan(nish) distribution of knowledge, and Drow

#FanStudies

doi.org/10.1177/1354...

Screenshot of Spotify Wrapped showing I listened to 93,228 minutes of music in 2024

Screenshot of Spotify Wrapped showing top five artists and songs

...it's been A Rough Year 😅

cover for Digital Futures of Graduate Study in the Humanities (Hankins, Lang, Appleford, 2024)

Thread on contributors and contributions to Digital Futures of Graduate Study in the Humanities (which doesn't argue that all such futures are "digital"): this book is an examination of the plans, institutions, successes, and failures of DH graduate training, broadly understood. (1/14)

Entering the Multiverse: Perspectives on Alternate Universes and Parallel Worlds The multiverse has portaled into the mainstream. Entering the Multiverse unpacks the surprising growth of the multiverse in media and popular culture today, and explores how the concept of alternate r...

Today's the day!!
Entering the Multiverse release day.
In another universe, this happened last week. And in another, it's tomorrow.
Thankfully, you're in this one and you can pick up your copy now!
www.routledge.com/Entering-the...

The cover of the book "The construction of race in Les Miserables fanworks". The cover features a simply coloured sketch of a man wearing a headscarf and thick moustache with a rifle.

My book about race in fandom came out yesterday! If you like Les Mis, thoughts about racebent headcanons and analysis of Tumblr AUs, please tell your library to order a copy!

www.bloomsbury.com/uk/construct...