Sarah “Sam” Saltiel

Queer, non-binary writer and award-winning game designer. Professor in Creative Writing and Game Design. Fiction MFA graduate from Brown University.

[Sarah “Sam” Saltiel @SaltielSarah]

Delighted to be on this upcoming panel about games and climate justice! If you’re in the Olympia area, come by! #games #gamedesign #climatejustice

[Sarah “Sam” Saltiel @SaltielSarah]

It’s about spilling acid on myself in a lab accident as a nineteen year old. Which is to say it’s about loss, love, betrayal, adventuring mice, space ships in the distant future…and lots and lots of body horror. Find this excerpt in Volume 43 Number 2 on their website! #writing

[Sarah “Sam” Saltiel @SaltielSarah]

Some body horror for the new year! So excited about my nonfiction choose your own adventure piece, winner of the Ned Stuckey-French nonfiction prize and recently published by @SoutheastReview ! This piece is an excerpt of a full-length choose your own adventure book in progress

[Sarah “Sam” Saltiel @SaltielSarah]

It involved interactive performance, puzzle design, narrative writing, props and more! Really excited to be working with the new generation of game designers and educators. 
#teaching #gamedesign #alternaterealitygame #puzzle #professor

[Sarah “Sam” Saltiel @SaltielSarah]

So proud of my students! This quarter I’ve been teaching a class about games and education. The class has been split in half and each half has been making an alternate reality game for the other. Last week they each presented Act one of their game.

[Sarah “Sam” Saltiel @SaltielSarah]

If you’re in Olympia, please attend the meeting today or write an email by noon. I’m a professor at Evergreen and this change would negatively impact a ton of our most marginalized students. #Olympia

[Sarah “Sam” Saltiel @SaltielSarah]

I was given the opportunity to review Miranda Mellis’ spectacular new book Crocosmia (out with @nightboatbooks )

You can buy the book here: https://t.co/41tVaowob1
Find Mellis’ substack here: https://t.co/vS7uDDuQww
#BookReview #ecopunk #Literature #booklover #fiction

[Sarah “Sam” Saltiel @SaltielSarah]

The wonderful Miranda Mellis will be having some book readings in Olympia and Seattle for her new book Crocosmia by @nightboatbooks! She is a lovely human and a thoughtful, generous, and explosive writer. WA folks should come out to support! #literature #bookreading

[Sarah “Sam” Saltiel @SaltielSarah]

Got to spend some time this week playing a bisexual disaster in The Slow Knife. It’s a prompt-based TTRPG in which you play the villains of a revenge story. I was really impressed by the game—how thorough and intricate the prompt system was. #ttrpg #rpg #gamedesign

[Easterhands (I POST ART) @Easterhandz]

If you think 'bad character saying bad things' = 'the author saying bad things' then you are functionally illiterate

[Sarah “Sam” Saltiel @SaltielSarah]

(A great example of why my work makes for very awkward cocktail party conversations) the essay blends memoir, philosophy, media analysis, and interview transcripts to explore the phenomenon of suicidal ideation and intrusive thought. #writing #publication #publishing #memoir

[Sarah “Sam” Saltiel @SaltielSarah]

Very excited to say that “Death Anxiety: An Inoculation,” an essay from my autotheoretical memoir, was named a finalist in @plentitudes nonfiction contest!

[Sarah “Sam” Saltiel @SaltielSarah]

A bit late with this one, but last month I had the fantastic opportunity to speak to state legislators about the value of games in education, representing Evergreen state college and the education board of the TGA at the annual legislative game night! #games #education #teaching

[Sarah “Sam” Saltiel @SaltielSarah]

Real learning is messy, complex, and uncertain. It’s about teaching students to critically think for themselves. In lectures, if I give students prescriptive soundbites, their eyes glaze over. They’re most engaged when we’re working together to unpack nuanced ideas

[Sarah “Sam” Saltiel @SaltielSarah]

Strongly agree. It also gives students the message that learning should be about rote memorisation of flattened concept—that pedagogical approach is WHY students are bored in school in the first place.

[jon repetti @pourfairelevide]

In my experience, there is nothing students hate more than being pandered to like this. If you try to turn school into a TikTok video, they will just hate school even more because they’ll think (correctly) that they might as well just watch TikTok videos instead.

[Sarah “Sam” Saltiel @SaltielSarah]

I’m so delighted to say that an excerpt of “If This Matters” was selected as the winner of the @southeastreview’s nonfiction contest! #nonfiction #writing

[Sarah “Sam” Saltiel @SaltielSarah]

When I was nineteen years old I was in a lab accident where I spilled acid on myself. This was a big medical emergency that I didn’t quite emotionally deal with at the time because I was nineteen and kind of avoidant…

[Sarah “Sam” Saltiel @SaltielSarah]

but I’ve found myself returning to this moment, retelling it in different ways, as a scary story, a joke, a moment of self reflection. Last year, I wrote a choose your own adventure about the simultaneous trauma/comedy of it, about all the ways I’ve found myself narrativizing it.

[Sarah “Sam” Saltiel @SaltielSarah]

Setting up my curriculum for next quarter. Very excited about this class! #gamedesign #academia #speculativeworldbuilding