Nick Montfort

Nick Montfort is an IF author and theorist. Nick's nickname on ifMUD is nm.

Author Credits

• Winchester's Nightmare (1999). Finalist for Best Individual PC. Issued in a "hardback" edition of 10 , each copy of which included an old laptop.
• Ad Verbum (2000), for IF Comp 2000 (4th place and Miss Congeniality winner). Also, XYZZY Awards 2000 winner for Best Puzzles. Plus, finalist for Best Individual Puzzles and Best Use of Medium.
• Potsticker (2000), for Speed-IF 13.
• Dead Reckoning. (Translator, 2003). From the Spanish Olvido Mortal by Andrés Viedma Peláez.
• Mystery House Kracked by the Flippy Disk (2005), for Mystery House Taken Over.

Publications about IF

• "Interfacing with Computer Narratives: Literary Possibilities for Interactive Fiction." Thesis for B.A. in liberal arts, Plan II Honors Program, University of Texas at Austin, May 1995.
• "Interactor's Nightmare." Column about interactive fiction in Suck.com, 27 Jan 1997.
• "Cybertext Killed the Hypertext Star." A review of Espen Aarseth's Cybertext in ebr (Electronic Book Review) 11, Winter 2000/2001. Includes an implementation of Eliza and an interactive excerpt from Deadline.
• Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Fiction. A book on the history of IF for academic and general readers. MIT Press. 2003.
• "Toward a Theory of Interactive Fiction." Article on understanding IF as a simulation and through narratology. 2003. Forthcoming in IF Theory.
• "ifMap: A Mapping System for Cooperatively Playing Interactive Fiction Online." By Jessica Rubart and Nick Montfort. In Proceedings of the Technologies for Interactive Digital Storytelling and Entertainment (TIDSE) Conference, Darmstadt, Germany, March 24-26, pp. 364-369, Fraunhofer IRB Verlag, 2003.
• "Face It, Tiger, You Just Hit the Jackpot: Reading and Playing Cadre's Varicella." By Nick Montfort and Stuart Moulthrop. Fineart Forum 17:8, Aug 2003.
• "Interactive Fiction as 'Story,' 'Game,' 'Storygame,' 'Novel,' 'World,' 'Literature,' 'Puzzle,' 'Problem,' 'Riddle,' and 'Machine.'" In First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game, eds. Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat Harrigan, pp. 310-317, MIT Press, 2004.
• "A Bad Machine Made of Words." Review of Dan Shiovitz's Bad Machine on the trAce site. 17 Aug 2004. Review award winner, New Media Article Writing Competition, trAce/Writers for the Future.

Other Credits

• Host, IFNYC. A reading and discussion group that met monthly in New York from November 1999 - June 2000.
• Co-organizer, The Boston T1 Party: Electronic Literature in Performance. A reading that took place at the Boston Public Library on 25 April 2001.
• Organizer, Digital Intercourse. A reading of interactive fiction and hypertext fiction at the New School on 19 November 2001.
• Contributed a dream sequence to Narcolepsy (2003) by Adam Cadre, along with Stephen Bond, Liza Daly, Jennifer Earl, Stephen Granade, Jon Ingold, Paul O'Brian, Andrew Plotkin, Dan Shiovitz, Emily Short, Bridget Sweeney, and J. Robinson Wheeler.
• Organizer, Interactive Fiction Walkthroughs. A reading of IF with Star C. Foster, Nick Montfort, Daniel Ravipinto, and Emily Short. Hosted by Scott Rettberg. Kelly Writers House, 27 October 2004.
• Vice President, Electronic Literature Organization. A nonprofit organization to facilitate and promote the writing, publishing, and reading of literature in electronic media, including IF.

Links

• Nick Montfort's homepage
• Grand Text Auto, Nick Montfort's group blog on IF and other topics
• Baf's Guide listing for Nick Montfort

Interviews

• Interview with Nick Montfort, Author of Twisty Little Passages - Interview in E-boredom, June 2004.
• Pequeños Pasadizos Retorcidos - English translation of interview in SPAC, January 2004. Original Spanish version of the interview.