It’s possible to love a video game. To be devoted to it, to value what it does for you, and how it makes you feel. To want the best for it. Not in the same way you love a person — or at least, I hope not. But take a look at any major fan convention for video games, movies, TV, or almost anything that develops a subculture, and you can see this love is real, active, and powerful. And of course, profitable. And if it’s possible to love a video game, then of course it’s possible to fall out of love. To feel disconnected from what first drew you to it. To realize that it isn’t giving you everything it once did, and you can’t give it what it needs from you. Especially if what it needs is regular digital purchases in order to get a competitive advantage in gameplay. I loved Overwatch once. I don’t anymore. How that happened is, I think, worth examining. This Dear John letter is a broad history of the game Overwatch itself, and its relationship with both its own players and the company that made it. The honeymoon phase In 2016, Overwatch was a big deal. A Team Fortress 2-style team shooter, made by the people who brought us Starcraft and Diablo, with incredible character designs that looked like Pixar had decided to reboot G.I. Joe? Players couldn’t get enough of it. And indeed, for the first couple of years Overwatch was a 600-pound Winston of the gaming landscape, dominating game coverage, showing up constantly on Let’s Plays, and causing an excited... Continue reading at 'PC World'
[ PC World | 2022-11-01 15:51:22 UTC ]
The following story was chosen by Ottessa Moshfegh as the winner of the 2025 Stella Kupferberg Memorial Short Story Prize. The prize is awarded annually by Selected Shorts and a guest author judge. This story will be performed by an actor this spring. To hear more great short stories performed... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2025-05-28 11:10:00 UTC ]
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The author and activist, who was subject to a fatwa in 2000, has won the prestigious prize for translated fiction for her short stories about the lives of Muslim women. She and her translator Deepa Bhasthi explain how Heart Lamp’s themes ‘are universal’• ‘Radical translation’ of Heart Lamp by... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2025-05-23 12:00:30 UTC ]
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Seven queer African creative works you should know about, from short stories to music videos. Continue reading at The Conversation
[ The Conversation | 2025-05-15 13:05:42 UTC ]
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The Best American Series is a literary institution. But just in case you’re stumbling upon it for the first time: Each book in the annual series showcases of best short fiction and nonfiction in a given year, from short stories to essays, science and nature writing, to food writing. Each... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2025-05-14 13:00:31 UTC ]
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My last Lit Hub conversation with Karen E. Bender was in 2018, just before her collection The New Order was published. She mentioned that she read John Cheever’s short stories in graduate school: “Cheever’s sentences just made my brain light up. He packs more into a paragraph—about love,... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2025-05-13 08:58:28 UTC ]
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In this interview, author Clea Young discusses the difference in inspiration between a novel and short stories with her new collection, Welcome to the Neighbourhood. The post Clea Young: Allow Yourself Fallow Periods To Recharge appeared first on Writer's Digest. Continue reading at Writer's Digest
[ Writer's Digest | 2025-05-07 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Mavis Gallant’s short stories are about people, especially women, who prefer to live on the social margins. I cherish one of them most of all. Continue reading at The Atlantic
[ The Atlantic | 2025-05-03 13:00:00 UTC ]
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A powerhouse of the genre, she published around 100 short stories and 17 novels, one of which was adapted into the acclaimed film “The Lady Vanishes.” Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2025-04-17 22:03:17 UTC ]
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April’s 10 best books range from short stories set in LA to a climate-change novel to a reappraisal of the American Revolution and its effects on other countries. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2025-04-11 10:00:14 UTC ]
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When I was nine years old my mother temporarily moved from our home in Los Angeles to New York City for a job in private banking. The family lore is that I wrote her letters, including short stories about a family of hamsters. I don’t remember what I was feeling then or why I did […] Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2025-03-25 08:58:26 UTC ]
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New Harper Lee short stories coming this fall, a day in the life of an audiobook narrator, the It Books of March, and more news. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2025-03-09 15:00:00 UTC ]
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Eight unpublished stories by the To Kill a Mockingbird author will be issued later this year as The Land of Sweet ForeverNever-before-seen short stories by Harper Lee will be published later this year, it has been announced.Eight short stories written before the author started the novel that... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2025-03-04 16:09:02 UTC ]
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Before she published “To Kill a Mockingbird,” Lee had written short stories in which she explored some of its themes and characters. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2025-03-04 14:43:04 UTC ]
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Fall in love with this collection of short stories centering Indigenous love and what it is to make a relationship. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2025-02-28 13:00:00 UTC ]
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The longlist for the International Booker Prize 2025 “celebrates the best works of long-form fiction or collections of short stories ... Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2025-02-25 18:01:05 UTC ]
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Every week, our weekly magazine The Commuter publishes a new work of flash fiction, poetry, and graphic narrative. For Black History Month, we’re looking to the archives for some of our favorite poetry and stories by Black writers, all available to read for free online. From Tara Campbell’s... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2025-02-21 12:05:00 UTC ]
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Mavis Gallant wrote short stories full of brutal humor that examined the hell of other people. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2025-01-18 10:00:14 UTC ]
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