'I played video games with a voracious appetite': writer Carmen Maria Machado on being a lifelong gamer

In my first memory of the medium, I am standing behind Eric and he has black hair. His mother couldn't have watched me more than a handful of times in my childhood, but I can visualise the living room vestibule where we are standing as clearly as if it's my own house. It must be around 1993. I remember that Eric is playing Super Mario Bros, but only because my little brother's name is Mario and I make the connection with confusion. Eric offers to let me play, once, and I hold the controller like the alien object it is.