Bio
Brendan Allen (he/him) studies how independent game video game makers—especially those working within literary hybrid forms—navigate systems of material constraints, rhetorical genres, and social publication. He focuses particularly on work made with constrained gamemaking tools such as Twine, Bitsy, and PuzzleScript.
As a poet and video game maker, Brendan increasingly works in the hybrid form of game poetry. He is the developer of the video games Correspondence (2024), The Last Best Western in Ohio (2023), and CentoQuest (2020). His poetry chapbook, The Corridors, was published by Bottlecap Press in 2023.
Brendan is a PhD student with the Faculty of Information, where he also pursues a collaborative specialization in Book History and Print Culture. He previously worked as an assistant professor of English at Trine University.
Research Specializations
Hybrid digital literature, new media, rhetorical genre studies, poetry and poetics, platform studies, book history, research-creation
Degrees
- BA in English, concentration in creative writing – University of Kansas (2013)
- MA in English, concentration in poetry and poetics – University of Maine (2018)
- MFA in poetry – Temple University (2021)