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About Ethan Gilsdorf:
Shorter biography (125 words):
Ethan Gilsdorf is the author of the travel memoir / pop culture investigation Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms, named a Must-Read Book by the Massachusetts Book Awards.
After playing Dungeons & Dragons religiously in the 1970s and 1980s, Ethan Gilsdorf went on to become a poet, teacher, critic and journalist. In the U.S. and in Paris, he’s worked as a freelance correspondent, guidebook writer, and film, book and restaurant reviewer. Now based in Somerville, Massachusetts, he publishes travel, arts, and pop culture stories regularly in the New York Times, Boston Globe, and Christian Science Monitor, and has been published in dozens of other magazines, newspapers and guidebooks worldwide, including National Geographic Traveler, Psychology Today, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Australian Financial Review, USA Today, the Washington Post and Fodor's travel guides. He is a book and film critic for the Boston Globe and the film columnist for Art New England. His blog "Geek Pride" is seen regularly on PsychologyToday.com, and he also blogs for Boston.com's Globetrotting, Tor.com and TheOneRing.net. Gilsdorf has also been a guest as a fantasy and escapism expert on radio programs such as Air America's Inside Story and NPR's "Around And About"; has lectured at universities such as MIT; appeared at conventions such as Pax East, Gen Con and DragonCon; and read at book festivals nationwide. Follow Ethan’s adventures at http://www.ethangilsdorf.com.
As a performer:
"A lively, engaging reading style ... eloquent yet accessible"–The Boston Globe
"He captivated the audience with his passionate, inflective reading"–The Somerville News
"adorably amusing"–The Bostonist.com
Longer biography (325 words):
Ethan Gilsdorf is the author of the travel memoir / pop culture investigation Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms, named a Must-Read Book by the Massachusetts Book Awards.
After playing Dungeons & Dragons religiously in the 1970s and 1980s, Ethan Gilsdorf went on to become a poet, teacher, critic and journalist. In the U.S. and in Paris, he’s worked as a freelance correspondent, guidebook writer, and film, book and restaurant reviewer. Now based in Somerville, Massachusetts, he publishes travel, arts, and pop culture stories regularly in the New York Times, Boston Globe, and Christian Science Monitor, and has been published in dozens of other magazines, newspapers and guidebooks worldwide, including National Geographic Traveler, Psychology Today, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Australian Financial Review, USA Today, the Washington Post and Fodor's travel guides. He is a book and film critic for the Boston Globe and the film columnist for Art New England. His blog "Geek Pride" is seen regularly on PsychologyToday.com, and he also blogs for Boston.com's Globetrotting, Tor.com and TheOneRing.net.
Gilsdorf has also been a guest as a fantasy and escapism expert on radio programs such as Air America's Inside Story and NPR's "Around And About," has lectured at universities such as MIT, Louisiana State University, and University of Southern California; and appeared at conventions such as Pax East, Gen Con, DragonCon, Boskone, Arisia, and SnowCon; and read at book festivals nationwide including the Boston Book Festival, Decatur Book Festival, Brooklyn Book Festival and the Twin Cities Book Festival.
As a poet, he is the winner of the Hobblestock Peace Poetry Competition and the Esme Bradberry Contemporary Poets Prize, and has published poems in Poetry, The Southern Review, The North American Review, Exquisite Corpse and several anthologies such as Short Fuse: A Global Anthology of New Fusion Poetry, Outsiders: Poems About Rebels, Exiles and Renegades and 100 Poets Against the War, among others. He is co-founder of Grub Street's Young Adult Writers Program (YAWP), volunteers as a guest speaker in the Boston Public Schools and leads journalism, feature writing, travel writing and creative writing workshops at Grub Street, Emerson College, Media Bistro and, for younger students, in schools and community centers.
On assignment for various publications, he has interviewed Sir Ben Kingsley, David Carradine and Sister Helen Prejean; taste-tested caffeinated beer; acted as an extra on a movie set; and embarked on a quest for the perfect French fry. He has walked across Scotland, mountain biked the French Pyrenees, explored caves in New York State and backpacked through India.
To research Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks, Gilsdorf traveled from Boston to England, France to New Zealand, Planet Earth to the realm of Aggramar. He hung out with Harry Potter tribute bands, attended fan conventions and gaming tournaments, camped with 12,000 medieval reenactors for a week, sewed his own tunic, learned to sword fight, battled online goblins and trolls, and played Dungeons & Dragons again for the first time in 25 years. He does not own elf ears, but he has kept all his old D&D gear, and has been known to host a Lord of the Rings party or two.
Follow Ethan’s adventures at http://www.ethangilsdorf.com.