Academic Writing
Books
Return to Ravenloft: Dungeons & Dragons Novels and the Development of Shared Storyworlds. Book proposal under consideration, University of Minnesota Press.
Co-Edited
Co-editor with Adrianna Burton. Fans, Fandom, and Tabletop Roleplaying Games, University of Michigan Press. Anticipated 2027.
Co-editor with Emily Friedman. “Actual Play as Actual Art” special issue, In Focus (Journal of Cinema and Media Studies), vol. 64., no. 2, 2025.
Co-editor with Yue (Cathy) Wang. Catching Chén Qíng Lìng: The Untamed and Adaptation, Production, & Reception in Transcultural Contexts. Peter Lang, 2024.
Co-editor with Effie Sapuridis & Lesley Willard. “Platforms & Fandom” special issue, Transformative Works and Cultures, vol. 42, 2024.
Articles
Booth, Paul, and Maria K. Alberto. “Creator/player interplay and fan-created paratexts: A critical survey of creativity and its allowances in fan expansions of analog games.” Transformative Works and Cultures, vol. 47, 2026.
Alberto, Maria K., and Paul Booth. “‘So Much for the Prattling of Sages’: D&D Paratexts, Fan(nish) Distribution of Knowledge, and Drow.” Convergence, vol. 31, no. 3, 2025.
Sapuridis, Effie, and Maria K. Alberto. “Self-Insert Fanfiction as Digital Technology of the Self.” Humanities, vol. 11, no. 3, 2022.
Alberto, Maria K. “Seduction as Mythopoeic Accounting for Evil in Tolkien’s Work.” Mythlore, vol. 35, no. 2, 2017.
Alberto, Maria K. “Fan Film Culture & the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien.” Journal of Tolkien Research vol. 3, no. 3, 2016.
Book Chapters
“Fanfiction.” The Oxford Companion to J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Dimitra Fimi and Luke Shelton, Oxford University Press, anticipated 2027.
Alberto, Maria K., and Yvonne Gonzales. “(Voiceover) Imagine a World…: Fan Animatics for TTRPG Shows.” The Routledge Handbook of Fan Video and Digital Authorship, edited by Louisa Stein & Samantha Close, Routledge, 2026.
“Playing Across Planes with the D&D Multiverse.” Entering the Multiverse: Perspectives on Alternate Universes and Parallel Worlds, edited by Paul Booth, Routledge, 2024.
“Tolkien’s Cities of the First Age as Mythic Infrastructure.” Cities and Strongholds of Middle-earth: Essays on the Habitations of Tolkien’s Legendarium, edited by Cami Agan, Mythopoeic Press, 2024.
“Original Slash, Romance, and C.S. Pacat’s Captive Prince.” New Frontiers in Popular Romance: Essays on the Genre in the 21st Century, edited by Susan Fanetti, McFarland, 2022.
Alberto, Maria K. and Dawn Walls-Thumma. “Exploring the Longevity of Tolkien Fandom.” Fandom, The Next Generation, edited by Bridget Kies and Megan Connor, U Iowa Press, 2022.
“A platform studies approach to fan studies projects.” A Fan Studies Primer: Methods, Ethics, Research, edited by Paul Booth and Rebecca Williams, University of Iowa Press, 2021.
“Creating Canons in Tabletop Roleplaying Games Played Online.” Roleplaying Games in the Digital Age: Essays on Transmedia Storytelling, Tabletop RPGs and Fandom, edited by Jennifer Cover and Stephanie Hedge, McFarland, 2021.
“Forging Posthuman Identity in Dominic Mitchell’s In The Flesh.” The Posthuman Gothic, edited by Anya Heise-von der Lippe, University of Wales Press, 2017.
“Gender & Canon: Creating Sherlock’s Postfeminist Femme Fatale.” In Gender & the Modern Sherlock Holmes, edited by Nadine Farghaly, McFarland, 2015.
Editor-Reviewed Essays
Alberto, Maria K., and Billy Tringali. “Working with Fannish Intermediaries.” Transformative Works and Cultures, vol. 37, 2022.
Alberto, Maria K., and Billy Tringali. “Anime Convention Attendance in Response to Covid-19.” The Journal of Anime and Manga Studies, vol. 3, 2022.
Alberto, Maria K. “Fan-users and platform studies.” In “Fan Studies Methodologies” special issue, Transformative Works and Cultures, vol. 33, 2020.
Recent Reviews
2026 – Review of Dom Ford’s Mytholudics: Games and Myth for The Journal of Gaming and Virtual Worlds
2025 – Review of Matthew Wysocki and Steffi Shook’s The Bloomsbury Handbook of Sex and Sexuality in Game Studies for The Journal of Gaming and Virtual Worlds
2025 – Review of Mel Stanfill’s Fandom is Ugly for The Journal of Fandom Studies
2025 – Review of Jinying Li’s Anime’s Knowledge Cultures for The Journal of Anime and Manga Studies
2025 – Review of Megan Amber Condis and Mike Sell’s Ready Reader One for The Journal of Gaming and Virtual Worlds
2024 – Review of Mark Bould and Steven Shaviro’s This Is Not A Science Fiction Textbook for Ancillary Review of Books
2024 – Review of Rhonda Knight and Donal Quist’s Who Makes the Franchise? for The Journal of Fandom Studies
2023 – Review of Sara K. Howe and Susan E. Cook’s Representing kink for Transformative Works and Cultures