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.
Articles by Ethan Gilsdorf
The banana as we know it is in trouble
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.
I gave my stepmother a hard time as a kid. Now I can’t imagine life without her
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.
50 years on, 'Rocky Horror' is still for us freaks and geeks
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.
My mom, Julia Child and me
I can still see her, cigarette in mouth, a mug of coffee or cheap red wine within arm’s reach, standing at our kitchen island. My mom is chopping, mashing, dicing. Frying, braising, sautéing. Broiling, blanching, poaching. Steaming, simmering, baking. Most of all, she is tasting, and inviting me, and my brother and my sister, to taste, too. My mother loved to cook. She was fearless in the kitchen: experimenting, failing, trying again. Sadly, I don't have any of my mother’s handwritten recipes.
Essays, Essays, and more Essays...
Welcome to Memoir Land—a newsletter edited by Sari Botton, now featuring four verticals: Memoir Monday, a weekly curation of the best personal essays from around the web brought to you by Narratively, The Rumpus, Granta, Oldster Magazine, Literary Hub, Orion Magazine, The Walrus, and Electric Literature. Below is this week’s curation. First Person Singular, featuring original personal essays. Recently I published “MRI of a Rose,” by .
D&D turns 50 this year. Gather round the Dungeon Master's table
I associate the first time I played Dungeons & Dragons (or D&D) with a feeling of freedom and liberation. Rolling my first 20-sided die, seeing my character’s first adventure unfurl in my imagination, I felt released into a limitless kingdom of possibility. Of course, we also had games and toys: My siblings, the neighborhood kids and I tended towards Monopoly and Battleship, Barbie and GI Joe. I also played make-believe. I made Super 8 monster claymation movies. I doodled and scribbled.
The Power of the Sandwich: Story Containers Beyond Chronology
The Power of the Sandwich: Story Containers Beyond Chronology By Ethan Gilsdorf Cleaning up after dinner the other day, I began to think about containers. Which was the right one for this particular pile of leftovers? Plastic or glass? Round or rectangular? Should I cram all the leftovers into that oddball one I never returned after my neighbor’s cookout (you know, the one whose lid never quite fits). Perhaps a Ziploc bag would be best?
It’s AT&T, We Apologize for Thursday’s Outage and Also Why Won’t You Talk to Me!?
“It's AT&T. We apologize for Thursday's outage, which may have impacted you. As a valued customer, your connection matters and we are committed to doing better.” — Text sent by AT&T to its customers on Friday, February 23, 2024, 6:51 PM EST 7:00 PM: It’s AT&T again. We didn’t hear back so we just thought we’d check in again. How are things? How’s your Friday evening going so far? 8:27 PM: Hi. AT&T again. But you probably know that. Is your connection working OK?
The cell phone turned 50 this year. To celebrate, I’d like to be a little less connected
I'm out for my daily walk on a wooded pathway not far from where I live. I’m enjoying the movement of my body through space, the sensation of air and sun on my skin, the light filtering through the network of leaves and branches above me. I’m thinking but not thinking. My mind is tetherless. Then, at the height of this quasi-transcendent moment, a nagging thought about work creeps into my mind. I jam my fingers into my back pocket to haul out my cell phone. I check my phone.
ChatGPT’s Storytelling Chops Are No Match for Dungeons & Dragons
Tech News Tube is a real time news feed of the latest technology news headlines.Follow all of the top tech sites in one place, on the web or your mobile device.
ChatGPT’s Storytelling Chops Are No Match for Dungeons & Dragons
Our overeager party—an elvish druid; a dwarven wizard; a halfling rogue; and a human paladin—has arrived at a dusty, cluttered library. Hearing of our quest for the fabled Orb of Zarekath, the head librarian—Thimblewick, a gnome—recounts how it was once “a powerful artifact” that has long since disappeared in the nearby ruined city. But the rogue is less curious about Orb-lore and more interested in snooping and stealing from the nearby shelves.
Twelve Stellar Personal Essays, Curated Just For You...
Welcome to Memoir Land—a newsletter now featuring three verticals: Memoir Monday, a weekly curation of the best personal essays from around the web brought to you by Narratively, The Rumpus, Granta, Guernica, Oldster Magazine, Literary Hub, Orion Magazine, The Walrus, and Electric Literature. (Plus an associated quarterly reading series hosted by Lilly Dancyger.) First Person Singular, featuring original personal essays. Recently I published “Running For My Lives” by .
Dear Chatbot, Should I Write About My Dead Mother?
Dear Chatbot, Should I Write About My Dead Mother? A conversation between Ethan Gilsdorf and ChatGPT This conversation was edited and condensed for length and clarity. Should I write about my dead mother? Yes, you should write about your dead mother if you feel compelled to do so. Writing about someone you care about can be a cathartic and meaningful experience. When I was twelve, my mother suffered a brain aneurysm. She survived but was severely disabled. What should I say about her?
Quiz: Major League Baseball Mascot or Yoga Pose? | Robot Butt
Reinventing the 7th inning stretch one Asana at a time. “He goes into the stretch … and … Oh that’s bad, Phil. Looks like threw his second chakra out of alignment on that last play.” 1. Dinger 2. Downward Facing Dog 3. Fredbird 4. Lou Seal 5. Cow Stretch 6. Half Lord of the Fishes 7. The Racing Presidents 8. Reclining Hero 9. One-Legged King Pigeon 10. Blooper 11. Skull Shining Breath 12. DJ Kitty 13. Stomper 14. Side Crane 15. Happy Baby 16. Orbit 17. Wild Thing 18. The Pierogis 19. Rally Squirrel 20.
Antidepressant Brand Name, or Elf Character from Middle Earth?
Humor Fun fact: Both elves and antidepressant users project a facade of imperious calm, barely concealing a burning desire to leave these shores for Valinor, the Land across the Sea. [Photos: Warner Bros. Pictures and Flickr] 1. Anafranil 2. Celebrimbor 3. Celexa 4. Cymbalta 5. Idril 6. Desyrel 7. Viibryd 8. Fingolfin 9. Trintellix (formerly known as Brintellix) 10. Figwit (also known as Aegnor) 11. Glorfindel 12. Sarafem 13. Círdan 14. Luvox 15. Lúthien 16. Pexeva 17. Elrond 18. Haldir 19. Thranduil 20. Tofranil 21.
Quiz: Monster in the new Dungeons & Dragons movie or Republican Member of the Weaponization of the Federal Government Committee?
GOP, meet DND Quiz: Monster in the new Dungeons & Dragons movie or Republican Member of the Weaponization of the Federal Government Committee? Roll to save democracy! These treacherous foes will test your derring-do. And your derring-don’t. [Left photo by Ike Hayman from Wikimedia Commons; Right photo by the author] Issa Mimic Chest Massie Stefanik Gelatinous Cube W.
A connection with a stranger reminded me how to play
Commentary A connection with a stranger reminded me how to play "I meet his gaze for a moment and widen my eyes, showing interest in what he’s doing. He smiles back," writes Ethan Gilsdorf. (Getty Images) It is around 8 in the morning Amsterdam time. But my own body clock is set to Boston. I’m on part one of a two-part journey, laying over at Schiphol Airport on my way to Nairobi.
NASA crashed into an asteroid! Nerds like me are in heaven
Commentary On Monday night, NASA successfully pulled off a feat of deep-space jujitsu. In a mission called DART (for Double Asteroid Redirection Test), astronomers flew a golf-cart-sized spacecraft at 4.1 miles per second into a smallish, 530-foot-across asteroid named Dimorphos. The goal was to knock the rock off its course. The result? Mission accomplished. As NPR reported, “Move over, Bruce Willis: NASA crashed into an asteroid to test planetary defense.” Threaten our planet?
California Literary Review
Non-Fiction Reviews The Otherkin Resource Center (ORC) exists for people who don’t believe they are human. Elves, vampires, and unicorns are among the most popular non-human races that they claim to be. Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms The Lyons Press, 336 pp.
Watching the Red Sox. Looking for my mom
The other day, as I sat contemplating the Red Sox home opener at Fenway Park and divined the team's chances this year, I looked for my mother. And there she was, as always: on the wall, in the blurry, black and white photograph above my computer, hovering in the eternal present tense of the past, looking back at me. Hey, kiddo. In the photo, which must be from the mid-1970s, my mother wears a ski jacket and hiking boots.
In the '70s, the 'Zoom' kids were my people
Half a century later, I can still sing the address: "Write Zoom. Z, double-O, M. Box 3-5-0. Boston, Mass. 0-2-1-3-4. Send it to Zoom!" I remember Ubbi-Dubbi. ("Hub-i, frub-iends”). I remember the word riddle game called "Fannee Doolee” ("Fannee Doolee likes sweets, but hates candy”) although I never did figure it out. Most of all, I remember my old friends: Tracy, Neal, Leon, Danny, Maura and especially, Bernadette, my first TV crush, or crush in any medium, real or fictive.
What Our Brains Do When We Play Wordle
Get out of the way, Words with Friends, Boggle, and even that old pen-and-paper staple Hangman. The surprise word nerd game of the season is a web-based puzzle called Wordle, with a simple premise: Players have six tries to guess a daily five-letter word. After each guess, the game provides instant feedback in the form of colored tiles, and players can post an image to social media, showing the pattern of their guesses without revealing the word.
So You Want to Be a Writer in 2022? Setting Yourself Up for Success
Author and GrubStreet instructor Ethan Gilsdorf shares some tips and practical insight into how to set and reach your writing goals in 2022. You can learn more about this subject in Ethan’s two upcoming Online: Zoom seminars,So You Want to be a Writer in 2022?onFriday, January 21storSaturday, February 19th. If you’re anything like me, then this will sound like a familiar scenario: The new year begins.
A Wrecking Ball for Writer's Block: The Storymatic Creates Stories
Ever wish you had something to write about when your brain goes dead? The Storymatic is here to the rescue. Part writing prompt, part teaching tool, part parlor game, The Storymatic is a clever little box packed with 500+ cards. Open the lid and you open a nearly endless realm of possible plots, characters, situations, conundrums, and tall tales. Here’s how it works. First, you draw two gold cards.
Disney's 'Paperman' Is a Perfect Short Film
IS IT DESTINY? A beautiful woman changes the destiny of a young New Yorker in Paperman, a groundbreaking short that merges computer-generated and hand-drawn animation techniques in a minimalist black-and-white style. In front of Wreck-It Ralph. ©2012 Disney. All Rights Reserved. For the first time since 1990, Disney Animation has created an animated short to accompany a feature release (the last time was Mickey Mouse in The Prince and the Pauper, released with The Rescuers Down Under).
Nevertheless, ‘She Votes’: An Important New Book on Women’s History
Tl;dr: She Votes is a powerful book not to be missed. The 19th Amendment The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. Just looking at the words, the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution sounds like a little thing. But it made a huge difference in the lives of countless women.
Did You Know We're Getting a 'Jurassic World' Animated Series?
Gold Level Patrons: Chris Spires, Doug Smidebush, Lior Keinan, Kelvin Nduka, Thad Standley, Nolan Zak, Adam Franks, Stephen Brown, Loren Roberts, Matt and Nykki Boersma, Tom Morgan, Jack Everitt, John Kovalic, Seiler Hagan, Jess Hart, Will James, Christopher M. Kelly, Roberto L. Vargas, Michele Hall, Chuck Lawton, Ismael Schonhorst, (There are those who call him) Tim, Vladimir Weinstein, Randiman Rogers, Robert Booth, Henry Roenke, Kevin Culp, W.
California Literary Review
Non-Fiction Reviews The Otherkin Resource Center (ORC) exists for people who don’t believe they are human. Elves, vampires, and unicorns are among the most popular non-human races that they claim to be. Like this: Like Loading... Published on June 10, 2020 Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms by Ethan Gilsdorf The Lyons Press, 336 pp.
Best games against social isolation - | - Ethan Gilsdorf writer | teacher | critic | nerd Author of Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks
I was asked by the Boston Globe to recommend my favorite games --- board and card games, charades-type games, and role-playing games --- to play in person with your quarantine crew or online via video conference. In the story, I recommend Cards against Humanity, Dungeons & Dragons, and Pandemic.
D&D Poems — Starring the Umber Hulk, Gelatinous Cube and Girls - GeekDad
Posted on June 11, 2011 by Ethan Gilsdorf • 0 Comments The muse has hit me like a vorpal sword. I’ve been working on some poems for an upcoming comedy performance and it was impossible to resist the temptation to pen some D&D-inspired poems. For those of you who can’t make it, here’s a sneak peek of some of the material I’ll be reading. WARNING to Parents: Some of the poems’ content may not be suitable for young eyes. Note to 4th edition D&D players: I’ll be kicking it old school. D&D Haiku 1.
Keep It Real: Five Coaching Tips from 'The Voice'
[Geek Pride welcomes guest blogger Lisa Prior, founder of Boston-based Prior Consulting LLC.] Three of the four coaches went wild after the performance: country singer Blake Shelton, rocker Adam Levine, and soul artist Cee Lo Green all applauding madly for the grinning contestant. The audience shrieked with approval. But Christina Aguilera, the fourth coach, remained seated. She sipped her drink and looked up from eyelids half-drooping with boredom. "I keep it real," Aguilera said.
The Experience Playlist: Air + Space
Tech + Life A Spotify playlist of songs about outer space — featuring David Bowie, Stevie Nicks, The National, and more. By Erick Trickey Lyricists have written about space for as long as they’ve looked up at the moon, but the manned space flights of the 1960s inspired an unending connection between the cosmos and the rock-’n’-roll imagination.
Forget football. Video games are the next big college sport.
Humans+Robots Nerds are the new jocks at colleges across the nation, playing Overwatch and Fortnite on esports scholarships. By Ethan Gilsdorf On a Friday evening in November, a few minutes before the next match, Becker College coach Nick “Shifty” Travis gathers his varsity squad for a pep talk. “I want cleaner game play than we had in the warm-ups,” he says, pacing in a circle around his warriors.
In a chaotic world, Dungeons & Dragons is resurgent | Produced by Advertising Publications
It wasn’t that many years ago that Dungeons & Dragons had been nearly left for dead. The tabletop role-playing game had once been “one of the coolest, most meaningful fantasy brands on the planet,” said Nathan Stewart, who runs D&D at Wizards of the Coast, the Hasbro subsidiary that makes the game. But when he was hired in 2012, he said, “it was really obvious that the current edition of Dungeons & Dragons was not ubiquitous.
In a chaotic world, Dungeons & Dragons is resurgent
It wasn’t that many years ago that Dungeons & Dragons had been nearly left for dead. The tabletop role-playing game had once been “one of the coolest, most meaningful fantasy brands on the planet,” said Nathan Stewart, who runs D&D at Wizards of the Coast, the Hasbro subsidiary that makes the game. But when he was hired in 2012, he said, “it was really obvious that the current edition of Dungeons & Dragons was not ubiquitous.
In a Chaotic World, Dungeons & Dragons Is Resurgent (Published 2019)
The role-playing game has made a surprising return to mainstream culture. “Rivals of Waterdeep” is a Dungeons & Dragons show on the live-streaming service Twitch. Players include, from left, Brandon Stennis, Cicero Holmes, Surena Marie and Carlos Luna.Credit...David Kasnic for The New York Times Published Nov. 13, 2019Updated Nov. 15, 2019 It wasn’t that many years ago that Dungeons & Dragons had been nearly left for dead.
Science Is Everywhere in Entertainment-But Are We Smarter for It?
Receive emails about upcoming NOVA programs and related content, as well as featured reporting about current events through a science lens. On a Tuesday night in December at the Oberon Theater in Harvard Square, for a program called “You’re the Expert,” an unusual experiment is being performed. Three comedians and one witty host are combined, on stage, with one world-renowned scientist in a petri dish called live performance.
Art New England | Walking on Water
Walking on Water Ethan Gilsdorf By: Ethan Gilsdorf The opening shot of Walking on Water begins in darkness. From that gloom emerges the silhouette of an old man rooting around in his dim studio. The figure is Bulgarian-American environmental artist Christo, co-creator of massive environmental artworks involving swaths of billowing cloth and acres of landscape, sometimes swaddling architectural landmarks such as Berlin’s Reichstag and Paris’s Pont Neuf in fabric, and often decades in the making.
WBCN and The American Revolution
WBCN and The American Revolution By: Ethan Gilsdorf If you grew up in the 1970s or 1980s within an hour’s radius of Boston, as I did, your formative years probably rocked to the soundtrack of WBCN 104.1 on your FM dial. WBCN and The American Revolution captures that legendary rock station’s origin story. A decade in the making, this documentary now comes ten years after WBCN-FM went off the air in 2009.
YAWP Summer 2019 Playlist Series: In the Garage
In anticipation of 75-degree-or-higher weather, endless waffle cones of ice cream, and later curfews, we’ve asked teen instructors to describe their upcoming teen class as a pop song.
Crafting and sharing powerful narratives in Guatemala City
By Ethan Gilsdorf Editors’ note: This seventh blog marks the half-way point in our series, Think Tanks and Gender, which is the outcome of a writeshop organized in March by Gender at Work, IDRC’s Think Tank Initiative and ASIES. We were very fortunate to be supported by a gifted writing coach, Ethan Gilsdorf. When asked if he would be willing to share his reflections on working with researchers and other staff from think tanks, Ethan kindly obliged. And we are very glad he did. Take a look.
The Seductive Promise of Airports
UNLIKE most travelers, I have a thing for airports. I’m happy browsing the newsstands or aimlessly wandering the terminal. To me, bliss is sitting at a bland airport bar and watching a ballgame, with three hours to kill before a flight. Travelers tend to feel rushed, lost or stressed in airports. Lines, hassles and disembodied announcements like “And remember to put them in a clear, resealable, quart-size plastic bag” induce anxiety. Not for me.
The Experience Questionnaire: Karen Kilgariff
Karen Kilgariff is a comedian, writer, and co-host of the podcast “My Favorite Murder.” Where do you come up with your best ideas? If I exercise in the morning, I get good ideas in the shower afterwards. What is the best non-material gift you’ve received? Well, it exists in material form, but it didn’t cost any money: when my niece Nora was in kindergarten, she made me a drawing of the sun with this huge smile on its face and underneath she wrote, “This is for you.
‘Creative trespassing’ sets me free
Cities+Nature What a grown man has in common with Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit By Ethan Gilsdorf It’s about two hours before dark on a winter afternoon. I park my car under a railroad bridge and slip past a “DO NOT ENTER” sign. Trash is everywhere: discarded children’s toys, beer cans, takeout food packaging, a trail of Fireball cinnamon whisky nip bottles. Woody vines of bittersweet twine through a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. Signs decorate the fence every 100 yards or so: “POSTED.
What happens after your house burns down
First Person Navigating scrap metal thieves, shady restoration companies, and the kindness of strangers By Jessica Palombo Gustafson I was standing in the front yard with my mom, watching two strangers with rubber gloves plunk down what remained of our possessions on folding tables. Our house had burned down the night before, and workers were going through the things pulled from our bedrooms.
Providence: Your New Favorite Lit Scene?
Rhode Island resident and Grub Instructor Ethan Gilsdorf offers an inside look at New England's best new lit scene: Providence. Drop by our Providence Open House and Info Session on Monday evening, January 14 and enjoy drinks and snacks, hear about upcoming winter/spring classes in Providence, meet Ethan and mingle with fellow students and writers. Grub staff members and instructors will be on hand to discuss your writing goals and recommend classes that are right for you.
NEON RetroFest Is Back in Time
If you’re longing for the days of big hair and shoulder pads, A-ha’s “Take On Me” and Wham’s “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go,” then head to NEON RetroFest (neonri.com), a celebration of 1980s culture, August 24 – 26 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel Providence-Warwick.
'Muppet Guys Talking': A Look Inside The Motley, Misfit, Multi-Species Mosh-Pit
If you grew up in the 1970s and 1980s like I did, the Muppets were your companions, teachers and friends. On “Sesame Street,” Big Bird and Kermit babysat me, and schooled me on my ABCs and 123s. Bert and Ernie were not only each other’s roommates, they seemed to room with me. Later, I cut my comedy teeth on "The Muppet Show." Its inane and insane vaudeville skits and musical numbers encouraged my own madcap antics. The nonsense song "Manamanah" was the theme song to my childhood.
Leaning Into the Wind
Most artists work with the media, supplies and tools they’ve brought into their studios: paint, canvas, stone, chisels. Not Andy Goldsworthy. The British artist limits himself to what natural materials he finds out-of-doors, on site: stones, mud, pine cones, twigs and thorns. He might use his breath to form pieces of ice into an archway or spend hours gathering colored leaves and “glue” them, with water, to a staircase.
How playing Dungeons & Dragons made me more creative and compassionate
Cristina Daura You can gain strengths and abilities you didn’t know you had from fantasy role-playing games, says writer Ethan Gilsdorf. You’re a member of a team of adventurers, and your shared quest is to rescue a prince who has disappeared near an abandoned castle. In this mission, who do you want to be? A brave dwarf warrior? A brainy human wizard? A skilled elvish archer? A stealthy hobbit thief? As you approach the ruins, you see a creature.
Show More
loading
Actions
Is this you?
As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.Get in touch with Ethan
Contact Ethan, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack