<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Warmest congratulations! I am looking forward to reading these works, Ksenia<br class=""><div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Sep 8, 2021, at 11:35 AM, Melanie Swalwell <<a href="mailto:mswalwell@swin.edu.au" class="">mswalwell@swin.edu.au</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><div class="WordSection1" style="page: WordSection1; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">Hi SIGCIS,<o:p class=""></o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">It’s great to hear all this love and appreciation for recent publications! I am pleased to be able to add 2 more to the tally of computer history books published recently.<o:p class=""></o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></div><ol start="1" type="1" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;" class=""><li class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt -18pt; line-height: 15.546667098999023px; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">In August, my monograph<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><i class="">Homebrew Gaming and the Beginnings of Vernacular Digitality</i><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>was published, with MIT Press. Here’s the blurb:<o:p class=""></o:p></li></ol><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">From the late 1970s through the mid-1980s, low-end microcomputers offered many users their first taste of computing. A major use of these inexpensive 8-bit machines—including the TRS System 80s and the Sinclair, Atari, Microbee, and Commodore ranges—was the development of homebrew games. Users with often self-taught programming skills devised the graphics, sound, and coding for their self-created games. In this book, Melanie Swalwell offers a history of this era of homebrew game development, arguing that it constitutes a significant instance of the early appropriation of digital computing technology.<o:p class=""></o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">Drawing on interviews and extensive archival research on homebrew creators in 1980s Australia and New Zealand, Swalwell explores the creation of games on microcomputers as a particular mode of everyday engagement with new technology. She discusses the public discourses surrounding microcomputers and programming by home coders; user practices; the development of game creators' ideas, with the game Donut Dilemma as a case study; the widely practiced art of hardware hacking; and the influence of 8-bit aesthetics and gameplay on the contemporary game industry. With Homebrew Gaming and the Beginnings of Vernacular Digitality, Swalwell reclaims a lost chapter in video game history, connecting it to the rich cultural and media theory around everyday life and to critical perspectives on user-generated content.<o:p class=""></o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">The title is #6 in the MIT Press Game Histories series, edited by Henry Lowood and Raiford Guins. More info:<a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/homebrew-gaming-and-beginnings-vernacular-digitality" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114); text-decoration: underline;" class="">https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/homebrew-gaming-and-beginnings-vernacular-digitality</a><o:p class=""></o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></div><ol start="2" type="1" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;" class=""><li class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt -18pt; line-height: 15.546667098999023px; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">In May, my latest anthology<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><i class="">Game History and the Local</i><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>was published by Palgrave. The blurb:<o:p class=""></o:p></li></ol><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">This book brings together essays on game history and historiography that reflect on the significance of locality. Game history did not unfold uniformly and the particularities of space and place matter, yet most digital game and software histories are silent with respect to geography. Topics covered include: hyper-local games; temporal anomalies in platform arrival and obsolescence; national videogame workforces; player memories of the places of gameplay; comparative reception studies of a platform; the erasure of cultural markers; the localization of games; and perspectives on the future development of ‘local’ game history.<o:p class=""></o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">The title brings together some of the most exciting authors and work happening in game history at the moment, in my opinion. I think it will be of particular interest to scholars working at the interface of game history/computer history, but hopefully many others as well.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p class=""></o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">Chapters 1 and 12 are available open access. If your institution has Springerlink, then you may have access to the whole thing here:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-66422-0" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114); text-decoration: underline;" class="">https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-66422-0</a><o:p class=""></o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">Regards,<o:p class=""></o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">Melanie<o:p class=""></o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 9pt;" class="">--<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 9pt;" class="">Melanie Swalwell<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 9pt;" class="">Professor of Digital Media Heritage<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 9pt;" class="">Co-Chair,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span class=""><a href="http://www.sigcis.org/" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114); text-decoration: underline;" class=""><span style="font-size: 9pt; color: rgb(5, 99, 193);" class="">SIGCIS</span></a></span><span style="font-size: 9pt;" class=""><o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 9pt;" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 9pt;" class="">Centre for Transformative Media Technologies<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 9pt;" class="">School of Social Sciences, Media, Film and Education</span><span style="font-size: 9pt;" class=""><o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 9pt;" class="">Swinburne University<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 9pt;" class="">PO Box 218, Hawthorn Vic 3122 Australia<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 9pt;" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 9pt;" class="">Tel +61 3 9214 3911<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 9pt;" class="">AS419<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 9pt;" class=""><a href="mailto:mswalwell@swin.edu.au" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114); text-decoration: underline;" class="">mswalwell@swin.edu.au</a><o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 9pt;" class=""><a href="http://transformativemedia.swinburne.edu.au/" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114); text-decoration: underline;" class="">http://transformativemedia.swinburne.edu.au/</a><o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 9pt;" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 9pt;" class="">New books out in 2021!<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span class=""><a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/homebrew-gaming-and-beginnings-vernacular-digitality" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114); text-decoration: underline;" class=""><span style="font-size: 9pt; color: rgb(5, 99, 193);" class="">Homebrew Gaming and the Beginnings of Vernacular Digitality</span></a></span><span style="font-size: 9pt;" class=""><o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span class=""><a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-66422-0" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114); text-decoration: underline;" class=""><span style="font-size: 9pt;" class="">Game History and the Local</span></a></span><span style="font-size: 9pt;" class=""><o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></div></div><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; float: none; display: inline !important;" class="">_______________________________________________</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;" class=""><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; float: none; display: inline !important;" class="">This email is relayed from members at<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="http://sigcis.org/" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114); text-decoration: underline; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class="">sigcis.org</a><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; float: none; display: inline !important;" class="">, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. Opinions expressed here are those of the member posting and are not reviewed, edited, or endorsed by SIGCIS. The list archives are at<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114); text-decoration: underline; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class="">http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/</a><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; float: none; display: inline !important;" class=""><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>and you can change your subscription options at<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="http://lists.sigcis.org/listinfo.cgi/members-sigcis.org" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114); text-decoration: underline; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class="">http://lists.sigcis.org/listinfo.cgi/members-sigcis.org</a></div></blockquote></div><br class=""></body></html>