In my final year of graduate school at the University of Texas at Austin, I was asked by the Cinematexas International Film Festival to curate, organize, and direct a new component to the larger festival that would focus on video games. They had wanted to do this for some time, but didn't know quite how to approach the subject. Being in the midst of a ton of games-oriented research and writing for my degree, I jumped at the chance.

I spent the next few months pulling a mini-festival together almost single-handedly. I identified and contacted potential speakers and participants around the country. Slowly, a viable schedule began to emerge. I wrote press releases, tackled graphic design for the festival's promotional materials, and later drove around town to hang those same posters and cards. I searched for an appropriate venue and, once I settled on it, I negotiated the terms of its use. Once Games Without Borders began, I picked up speakers and participants at the airport, ran the audio/visual presentations, conducted interviews with G4TV (a national gaming cable channel) and other press, and acted as the event emcee.

The three-day Games Without Borders festival was keynoted by celebrated cultural critic Mark Dery .

Game designer and theorist Katie Salen gave an interactive lecture about machinima , and the team behind Red vs. Blue (Rooster Teeth Productions ) made sure that the house was packed with fanboys on a Saturday afternoon.

Digital artist and Nintendo hacker Cory Arcangel blew everyone's mind in an 8-bit explosion, just before Paul Slocum played actual music on a hacked dot matrix printer .