Words are the most powerful things on Earth.

Words change everything. They keep our knowledge alive. They let us stay in touch with each other. They can convey beauty. They give us four of the best things in life: talking, listening, reading, and writing.

I love writing. It’s always been a big part of my life. For most of it, my profession has been writing computer code. Even there, I’ve taken pride in writing good documentation. Now I’ve shifted into writing words as a profession, where my technical knowledge still plays a major part.

Be sure to check my blog for news and tips on the writing business. You can subscribe to the RSS feed to catch all my posts.

Books

In 1984, Compute! Books published my Compute!’s Guide to Adventure Games.

My e-book, Files that Last: Digital Preservation for Everygeek, is available for purchase. It talks about the issues in keeping data documents usable for the long term and offers practical advice on how to do it.

For fans of music, science fiction, and popular culture, my e-book Tomorrow’s Songs Today: The History of Filk Music is available as a free download. It was financed with a crowdfunding campaign on IndieGoGo.

Articles

My articles have appeared on the website of the Foundation for Economic Education, where I’m on the faculty network. See my portfolio page for more information.

I’ve written several pieces for the Online Library of Liberty, run by the Liberty Fund.

My writing on file format and digital preservation issues appears on Mad File Format Science. The custom subdomain madfileformatscience.garymcgath.com is no longer in operation. Update your bookmarks as necessary.

Other things

I run the websites for MASSFILC, a Massachusetts musical club where I’m clerk, webmaster, and past president and have chaired three ConCertino filk music conventions. In 2004 I was named to the Filk Hall of Fame.

Once a month I present silent movies with live, improvised accompaniment on Twitch.

You can find me on Goodreads and LibraryThing. In addition, I’m on Liberdon (a Mastodon instance).

My Facebook account is authentic, but I use it mostly to post links to here.