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Ethan Gilsdorf on Muck Rack

Ethan Gilsdorf

As seen in: Grub Street, Medium, The New York Times, USA Today, PBS, Psychology Today, TED, WIRED, Boston.com, Substack, The Toronto Star and
Covers:  travel, arts, science fiction, movies, geek culture, essay, pop culture, gaming, books, fantasy
Author Fantasy Freaks & Gaming Geeks. Teacher. Nerd. Bylines @NYTimes @Wired Best American Essays @poetrymagazine, @TEDx Why D&D is Good for You. Dex 4 Wis 17.

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Ethan Gilsdorf’s Biography

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Ethan Gilsdorf is a journalist, memoirist, critic, poet, teacher and geek, and author of the award-winning travel memoir investigation Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms.

Based in Somerville, Massachusetts, he publishes travel, arts, and pop culture stories, essays and reviews regularly in the New York Times, Boston Globe, Salon.com, and wired.com and has published hundreds of articles in dozens of…

Ethan Gilsdorf’s Journalist Portfolio

Curt Schilling, Former Red Sox Pitcher, Makes Video Games

Curt Schilling, Former Red Sox Pitcher, Makes Video Games

IF you've proven your mettle by vanquishing Cardinals, Rockies and Yankees, in what new realms will you seek …

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Hobbit Week: A Review of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey | GeekDad | Wired.com

Hobbit Week: A Review of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey | GeekDad | Wired.com

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is perhaps the most expected journey audiences will go on this year. We've …

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How "Dungeons & Dragons" changed my life

How "Dungeons & Dragons" changed my life

Every Friday night, from my eighth grade to my senior year in high school, I fell into a realm of wizards' to…

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Tracking Thoreau Through Maine's 'Grim and Wild' Land

Tracking Thoreau Through Maine's 'Grim and Wild' Land

Ethan Gilsdorf for The New York Times An average of four people per square mile live in Piscataquis County, t…

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Why We Need Violent Video Games

Why We Need Violent Video Games

This video game image released by Bethesda Softworks shows a scene from "Dishonored." (AP) In the wake of the…

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Articles

The banana as we know it is in trouble

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By Ethan Gilsdorf
| WBUR-FM (Boston, MA) Verified
I consider myself an amateur banana expert. I’ve eaten one almost every day of my life. Let’s say I’ve consumed them at a clip of five bananas a week for 55-plus years. That makes plus or minus 15,000 bananas that I’ve consumed over my lifetime. They’ve been my daily fix, my go-to quick breakfast, my after-school or afternoon snack. They populate my backpack and back pockets.
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I gave my stepmother a hard time as a kid. Now I can’t imagine life without her

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By Ethan Gilsdorf
| WBUR-FM (Boston, MA) Verified
I have never envied my stepmother, Susan. She began as the interloper, "the other woman,” the one fused to my family’s original wound. In the early 1970s, my father separated from my mother — and left me and my two siblings — to be with Susan. Mom got full-time custody of us kids, and Dad eventually moved to Canada, a day’s drive away. My siblings and I were all under the age of 8.
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50 years on, 'Rocky Horror' is still for us freaks and geeks

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By Ethan Gilsdorf
| WBUR-FM (Boston, MA) Verified
It is 1984. My friends and I are standing in line outside the University of New Hampshire Memorial Union Building theater, surrounded by college kids. We are mere high school seniors. I am dressed in a hand-me-down Army jacket. Eric dons a leather pilot’s cap and goggles. Bill wears a leather jacket and shades. John, a veteran of this event, is festooned in Lycra and rhinestones. He has told us newbies to bring bags of rice, newspaper, water pistols, decks of cards and rolls of toilet paper.
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Interview

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What was your first job as a journalist?

I wrote for the newsletter of my food co-op newsletter in Brattleboro, VT.

Have you ever used a typewriter?

Yes.

How is social media changing news?

Not for the better. I get obsessed with how many followers I have. Distracting, yet also opens possibilities to new readers, and new stories.