Rate My Professor Heather Blakey

Heather Blakey is a writer and scholar affiliated with the School of Humanities at the University of Western Australia, where she is pursuing a Doctor of Philosophy in literary studies. Her doctoral research explores the intersections between technology, intimacy, and the environment in video games, literature, and virtual worlds. Blakey holds a Bachelor of Arts with First Class Honours in English and Cultural Studies, awarded on 14 July 2017. Prior to her doctoral studies, she worked as a publisher in Australia and the United Kingdom. She also engages in casual teaching across multiple disciplines within the School of Humanities.

Blakey's scholarly outputs total 27 items, including forthcoming publications such as the chapter 'Love and other terrors: Intimacy and vulnerability in English-language dating simulators,' co-authored with Sian Tomkinson, in Emerging Genres: New Formations of Games (Bloomsbury Academic, 2026); 'Orbital augury' in Utopia Science Fiction (2026); and conference contributions like 'The flâneur of Teyvat' (2026) and 'Theorising immediacy through videogames' (2026). Additional works encompass eight conference presentations, eight articles in specialist publications, three book or film reviews—such as her 2021 review of Selected Poems of Shinkawa Kazue—and two chapters. She has received notable recognition, including the UWA Convocation Matilda Award for Cultural Excellence in Literature on 21 September 2023, the Letter Review Prize for Poetry on 20 September 2023, and a shortlisting for the Heroines Prize for Women’s Writing in 2024. Blakey serves as the HDR representative on the School of Humanities Board (2024) and on the School of Humanities Research and Research Training Committee (2024 and 2025). She co-hosts the game studies podcast Meaningful Play, available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts since 2022, and holds memberships in the Digital Games Research Association and Digital Games Research Association Australia since 2022, as well as being a founding member of the International Fashion and Games Research Network (2026).