Free / Writing / Game Gatherings

This weekend, I’m attending LibrePlanet, the Free Software Foundation’s conference and hackfest here in Cambridge. I don’t have anything to present or hack upon at this one, but I’ll be listening and learning more about free software and software freedom.

On Tuesday, I head to Grand Forks, ND for the University of North Dakota Writers Conference: Mind the Gap – Print, New Media, Art. The featured authors and artists this year are:

• Art Spiegelman
• Frank X. Walker
• Nick Montfort
• Cecelia Condit
• Saul Williams
• Mark Amerika
• Stuart Moulthrop
• Deena Larsen
• Zeitgeist
• Kanser with More Than Lights

I’ll return on Friday and head straight to the Penny Arcade Expo East (PAX East) in Boston, where the confluence of about 60,000 gamers is expected. At 9:30pm on Friday is the world premiere of Jason Scott’s interactive fiction documentary Get Lamp. Afterwards is a panel with:

• Dave Lebling (Zork, Starcross, The Lurking Horror)
• Steve Meretzky (Planetfall, Hitchhiker’s, A Mind Forever Voyaging)
• Nick Montfort (included in this august group for writing a book about this stuff)
• Brian Moriarty (Wishbringer, Trinity, Beyond Zork)
• Andrew Plotkin (Spider and Web, Shade, Dual Transform)
• Don Woods (co-author with Will Crowther of the canonical first IF, Adventure)

And then, on Monday, March 29, at 5:30pm in MIT’s room 14E-310, I’ll host a reading in the Purple Blurb series. Emily Short (author of many award-winning interactive fiction pieces, including the recent Alabaster) and Jeremy Freese (winner of last year’s IF Comp for his Violet) will present and read from their work.

I hope to see some of you here in the Boston/Cambridge area or, perhaps, in Grand Forks!