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Brandon Sichling 

Co-editor-in-Chief  

 

Brandon L. Sichling makes movies, comics, and video games. He escaped, by degrees (that is, high school and BA) from the Midwest. He grew up in little Monmouth, Illinois, a place where Wild West lawmen, actors, poets, prophets, dancers, and presidents passed through. Even so, the town could never seem to keep them. He understood why.

 

His love for film started with big movies, Batman, Star Wars, that sort of thing. It was this same time he started playing video games, especially Super Mario World. Big, bombastic, joyful. And, it should be mentioned, the love of comic books set in early and thoroughly. As he grew up, Brandon found himself watching not only more animation, especially gross and glorious anime, but also indie films and movies from Hollywood's second Golden Age. This alongside playing more story-driven games like Final Fantasy VII.

 

Now Brandon's working on his first comic book, presenting his first video game at the Transcending Boundaries conference, and working on his first feature film, Intimates, hopefully coming to theaters someday. He is an MFA candidate in Visual Media Arts at Emerson College. 

Jordan Pailthorpe 

Co-editor-in-Chief 

 

Jordan Pailthorpe recently made the move to the Boston area from his hometown of Pawtucket, RI in order to become an MFA candidate at Emerson College in the Creative Writing Poetry program. Currently in his second year, his work blurs the lines between poetics, digital games, and interactivity through writing inside an electronic environment and bringing the form of the electronic environment onto the page.

 

As an adjunct instructor he teaches multi-modal writing and procedural rhetoric to Emerson undergraduates and new journalism to high school students on the weekend. He previously worked as instructional designer for Learning Games Network—a non-profit games studio spun out from the MIT-Game Lab—where he helped write and create an indie videogame design course. In his spare time he works for the Engagement Game Lab helping with game design and outreach, rides his vintage motorcycle, plays in a punk band, and spends plenty of downtime cuddling his two cats Virginia and Goku.

Alex Wysota 

Designer/Illustrator

 

Alex Wysota is an undergraduate student pursuing a degree in Animation and Motion Media with a minor in Business at Emerson College. She is interested in illustration and texture design for games, and is responsbile for all the pretty backgrounds, logos, and illustrations for Level 257. 

About Level 257 

 

Level 257 is an online bi-annual student journal on games and play hosted by the Engagement Game Lab at Emerson College. We publish work that attempts to transgress the current conversations happening around games and play as well as how those conversations are presented.

 

We emphasize multimodal diversity across different forms and genres. We value courageous new forms of student scholarship and encourage creativity and exploration in order to help move critical discussion on games and play forward. 

 

Publishable projects can range from critical or creative essays, digital or non-digital games, online interactive experiences or stories, video documentaries, or any other form of new/mixed media. See our submission page for details. 

 

Level 257 Staff  

Liam Collins

Publicity and Outreach

 

Liam Collins is an undergraduate student in the WLP program at Emerson College. He is interested in writing for and about games, creatively and critically. Liam is responsible for outreach and publicity promotion for Level 257. 

Level 257 is currently looking for staff writers, graphic and web designers, and reviewers. If interested in joining our team, send a short bio describing your work as well as a writing or design sample depending on the position you are applying for to: Jordanpailthorpe@gmail.com .

 

We are doing this out of the love of the medium, so unfortunately these  are non-paid positions. 

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