On Being “the Editor”
December 2007 Issue
Features
- From the Editors
- Craft Check: Gamer Cake
- Gaming in the Media: Cyber-Stupidity: Jade Raymond Edition
- Market to Me: Female Protagonists
Interviews
Articles
- Gender & Live-Action Role Play: Identity Crisis
Author: Samara Hayley Steele
- Naked and Terrified
Author: Elizabeth McDonald and Karen Healey
- “My Mom Likes Your Game”
Author: Mara Poulsen
- Speaking from Authority
Author: Richard Pilbeam
In this ongoing series, Samara shares her experiences as a female LARPer in a male-dominated LARP Organization.
Elizabeth and Karen dialogue on a set of miniatures called “Hot Chicks 3.1: Naked Distress”.
Mara looks at the casual gaming industry and what it means for female gamers.
Richard discusses the default "he" and what it says about sexism in the Warhammer 40,000 universe.
Gamer Stories
Reviews
This time last year, I had never received a review copy of anything. I had never been invited to participate in an online debate. My connection to the gaming industry was strictly that of a casual consumer – I bought sourcebooks and dice with fair regularity, miniatures every now and then and a computer game whenever one particularly caught my eye. And then Andrea Rubenstein and I stayed up way too late one night venting our gaming culture frustrations at each other over an instant messaging program, the idea for this magazine was born, and everything rapidly became very different.
All of a sudden, I’m an editor of and frequent contributor to a gaming magazine. Whoa.
I’ve noticed some interesting changes in the way I think about myself and behave in daily life. I’m more likely to strike up conversations with strangers who are wearing gaming t-shirts or playing with a handheld gaming device than I was before. I pay much closer attention to what’s hot and current in the video and tabletop gaming scenes. I have even started introducing myself to people as the editor of a gaming magazine, and, a couple of times – to my chagrin – I’ve even name-dropped about gaming professionals I’ve gotten to know through my involvement with Cerise.
But it wasn’t until the other editors and I started looking through the submissions we received for this, our “Gaming as an Industry”-themed issue, and discussing gaps that needed to be filled and people we could approach for articles, or interviews, or Gamer Stories, that it really hit me – I’m a part of that industry now, in a way.
It feels weird to think about what I’m doing here in that context. Weird, but good. I’m meeting and interacting with a lot of people who not only play games, but work with them, somehow, and who are just as passionate about the messages games send and just as devoted to making a better, more inclusive gaming culture as I am. It’s fantastic to be a part of this, to feel like what I’m doing with Cerise can contribute, even in a small way, to a broadening of the gaming industry.
I’m an editor of and frequent contributor to a gaming magazine that publishes sexism-free reviews, fascinating interviews and recurring features and great, challenging articles every month.
And that? Is really cool.
