About

This is my new about page! If you’re looking for information about Philomath Games, go here for the old one.

A preliminary disclaimer: The posts on this blog are syndicated from my livejournal, using their tag system which blasts to RSS. So if you don’t see comments here, it’s probably because the party’s over there. This may change over time as I attempt to consolidate.

Hello! Welcome, and thanks for stopping by. About pages are finicky things, and I am constantly fiddling with this one. So I apologize for your having discovered this page in a state of fiddle. But, you found me. You probably know already that I am Erin-Hoffman-the-writer-and-game-designer, and not, for instance, Erin Hoffman the visual artist or Erin Hoffman the actress. I am also not Erin Hoffman the police officer, Erin Hoffman the volleyball coach, or Erin Hoffman the lawyer — so apologies if you were looking for any of them. If, however, you like books, creatures, fantasy, video games, or the world, please stick around.

My latest catch-all bio (not to be confused for game-specific, writing-specific, or work-life-balance-specific), for those seeking such things, is:

Author and video game designer Erin Hoffman was born in San Diego and now lives with her husband, two parrots, and two dogs in northern California, where she works as Game Design Lead at the Institute of Play’s GlassLab, a Bill and Melinda Gates and Macarthur Foundation supported three-year initiative to establish integrated formative assessment educational games. She is the author of the Chaos Knight series from Pyr books, beginning with Sword of Fire and Sea, followed by Lance of Earth and Sky in April 2012 and concluding with Shield of Sea and Space in 2013.

Her video game credits include DragonRealms, Shadowbane: The Lost Kingdom, GoPets: Vacation Island, Kung Fu Panda World, and FrontierVille. She writes for the award-winning online magazine The Escapist, and has had fiction and poetry in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Electric Velocipede, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and more. In 2004 her blog on game industry working conditions, “ea_spouse”, was covered by the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and LA Times, and is now referenced in numerous game history and corporate history studies.

Erin’s games have won multiple awards and have been played by millions of kids and adults worldwide. She is multiethnic, with family names including Lee, Asakawa (yonsei), and Drake in addition to Hoffman.

Interviews
Wherein I attempt to level up my soundbyte skills.
Podcasts

• On sword and sorcery in art and games, with Patrick Hester, Jaym Gates, John Picacio, Paul S. Kemp, and Eric Mona, at SF Signal, March 2012
• On games, the Chaos Knight, and topics of great mystery, with Patrick Hester at SFSignal, October 2011
• On Sword of Fire and Sea, and possibly a McGryphon sandwich, with the Skiffy and Fanty podcast crew, August 2011

Print

• On games, inspirations, and the creation of Sword of Fire and Sea, with Paul Weimer at SF Signal, July 2011
• On writing, games, and many awesome things, with Jeremy L. C. Jones for Clarkesworld, June 2011
• On writing and the process of Sword of Fire and Sea, with the Odyssey Writing Workshop, June 2011
• With Charles Tan’s Bibliophile Stalker, September 2009
• With Alterati (Wes Unruh), April 2007

Media

• Print resolution portrait photo (9.1mb)
• Sword of Fire and Sea front cover
• Sword of Fire and Sea wrap-around cover

Credits

• Featured art is “Rise” by Jennifer Miller.
• Sword of Fire and Sea‘s cover art by Dehong He.
• Website design by Erin Hoffman, powered by Thesis.

Guest Post Policy
If you are a subject matter expert in game design, storytelling, writing, biology, or cognitive science and would like to write a guest post, please feel free to contact me. If you are not a subject matter expert, and we aren’t acquainted in another way, please do not ask if you can write a guest post. I am increasingly receiving these requests from freelance writers, and I admire the chutzpah, but you just make me feel bad when I have to turn you down.