His Best Friend is a d20

I have been very fortunate when it comes to endorsements for My Best Friend is a Wookiee. A lot of people whose work I admire gave their time to say a lot of really nice things about a book by a guy nobody on the planet had ever heard of. Some of them even took that extra step and helped me out beyond just giving me a blurb. Kevin Rubio was nice enough to show me around Comic Con. Scott Hinze had me on Fanboy Radio (that show will air next week, stay tuned). And Ethan Gilsdorf has taken me under his wing, offering lots of advice for a new author and inviting me along on several events across the Northeast between now and Thanksgiving.

What instantly grabbed me about Ethan's book, Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Ro... was how similarly both of our stories started. Our introductions to our wonderful, fantasy-filled worlds of choice came at times when be both needed them most. They became the places we went to to escape from bullies or the hardships of living with a mom who was suddenly a twisted shadow of the care giver she once was. They were how we reached out and made friends and how our imaginations were lit on fire. We also both drifted from our beloved fictions, but never lost the love for what they gave us in our youth.

In his book, a travel memoir that takes him from Tolkien's stomping ground in England to D&D conventions and LARPing weekends, Ethan re-immerses himself in the geeky world he thought he had left behind. Through it all he wrestles with whether or not he is still the nerd he once was, which is something I was fighting with myself. Was I still, after all these years, still the Star Wars fan I was as a kid? Could I bring myself to wear a costume in public and dive back into the Expanded Universe of comics and novels? Ethan's book was an inspiration to my own rediscovery of the galaxy far far away. Through his example of throwing himself into the thick of geek culture and living to tell the tale, I felt empowered in my own quest to get familiar with the world I had, for a while, left behind.

Our first stop on our whirlwind tour of the Northeast is coming up on October 4 at Pandemonium Books & Games. You can get the details in the events link up at the top of this page. After that you can find us at Albacon in Albany, NY on October 10 and then Brooklyn, NY on November 22 at Word. More details on the Brooklyn event as it gets closer.

For more on Ethan and FFGG: http://www.ethangilsdorf.com/