In the Blue Shadow, My Skeleton Creaks

Marina Cone (she / her) is a poet, writer, woman, and scholar with a focus on game studies, literary theory, queer studies, cognitive literary studies, spatial theory, creative writing, and game design.

Who am I? Perhaps you can blame video games. From a very young age, I was preoccupied by games. Video games shaped my world, subsequently informing my conversations, my choice of reading material, and the squareness of my eyes from staring at the TV for too long. My life has also been shaped by my struggle with and subsequent acceptance of my inherent womanhood and womanness, which has informed my areas of research and my hobbies alike.

For my entire life, I have lived, studied, and worked in Ōtepoti Dunedin in Aotearoa. My life here has been remarkably lucky all things considered, and I am impossibly grateful for the opportunities I have been lucky enough to be able to seize. Hyperbole will never be enough!

My favourite game, Pathologic Classic HD (Ice Pick Lodge 2015), convinced me that while though all the games I enjoy might be fiction, they are still real. And I believe that whatever we can make into reality, whatever it is that brings joy or pleasure or longing or fascination or introspection or friendship or difficult thoughts or gender revolution or love, we have an obligation to make that real. To share our love.