Next week, I’m traveling to Minneapolis for the Twin Cities Comicon. I’ll be at the show Friday and Saturday, if you’re considering coming out to say hello.

In addition to the con, I was invited to speak to a group of students at a local high school about the intersection of kindness, empathy, and Star Trek. To prepare for it, I’ve been thinking about when I was briefly in public high school, before I left for Starfleet Academy, specifically the few assemblies and guest speakers I experienced. My clearest memory of every one of them is an adult showed up and talked at us in a way and about things that had little, if any, relevance to my lived experience and that of my peers. I remember swearing to myself that if I ever spoke to students when I was an adult, I wouldn’t talk at them, I would speak with them, and I would spend as much time as I could listening, instead of telling them how good they have it and that nothing they care about is important.

So that’s a great place for me to start, and a good north star to follow while I figure out how I want to do this. Today, I’ve been going through my archives¹ for inspiration, and to review what has worked in the past.

There’s a lot of stuff in there that’s not great, some stuff that’s good enough to collect into a book or something, and a clear picture of a man who loves his family and his life, who is also doing his best to recover from a lot of deeply painful abuse and trauma.

I think I have identified and sketched out a framework I can use to keep my remarks brief and to the point, and while I work on nurturing those ideas into an actual speech, I wanted to share something I’m not sure I have published here, before.

These are my remarks to the Southern Kentucky Library Association, from a few years ago. This speech is about how a librarian stepped up when nobody else in my life would, and helped pour the foundation that I would build the best parts of my life upon, not because it was her job, but because she genuinely cared about kids.

It’s long, so I’ve put it behind a jump thingy. If you read it, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

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Happy Wednesday, friends! Some odds and ends that have been piling up on my desk for you, today.

This week’s It’s Storytime With Wil Wheaton is The Body Snatcher, by Robert Louis Stevenson. This is the story that I read, live, for Patreon and about 70 people who showed up, last month. I sincerely love this entire performance. Gabrielle helped me find some subtle layers that were obvious to me, right after she pointed them out, and I couldn’t be happier with the end result.

It’s a big ask, to come along for the entire performance of something that was written over a century ago, so it was more important to me than I thought it would be to nail it. I’m real proud of what we did. I hope you like it, too.

This episode comes with a pretty cool new sponsorship partner, our friends at Simon and Schuster Audio (who publish The Body, and put my narration up for Grammy consideration). To promote Other Worlds Than These, the final book in The Talisman trilogy from Stephen King and Peter Straub, they’re giving away a preview chapter of the audiobook to our listeners. It’s narrated by Patton Oswalt, who is one of the great voices today. I think it’s super cool, and I’m so excited to get a little bit closer to doing It’s Storytime full time.

Oh, speaking of that, do you know I have a partnership with Black Stone Publishing? They gave me some space to curate a collection of speculative fiction novels they publish. I have been a fan for years; they don’t use any DRM, ever, in their audio and ebooks, they support indie artists, and they publish some truly outstanding genre work. This month, I wanted to spotlight a mid-century classic that is a wonderful expression of the ideas being explored in genre fiction at the dawn of the atomic age. It’s David Starr, Space Ranger (I know, right?) from Isaac Asimov (I know, RIGHT?). I didn’t even know this existed until last year, but Asimov wanted to write his own son into some scifi that was inspired by Heinlein’s young adult books. It’s not going to be for everyone, but if you’re even a little curious or intrigued, it might be for you. And if it isn’t, there are some other wonderful titles in the collection for you to check out.

Did I ever write here about the summer reading program I did? I ended up finishing six books, reading about thirty short stories, and ended with a 129 day streak. I went to the library last week to see if I could collect any of my prizes.

“Hi, I did the summer reading program, and I wondered if there were any prizes left?” I showed the librarian my log sheet, like you do. She looked a little flustered.

“Oh… I think we are out of rewards,” she said, while she opened drawer after drawer and looked inside.

“I was hoping for, maybe, like … a scratch-and-sniff sticker? Or a bookmark?” I offered.

She smiled and opened one of the drawers she had just closed. She pulled a small basket out and showed me five rows of bookmarks. “How about a scratch-and-sniff bookmark?”

My eyes popped. “Oh my god that’s perfect!”

I saw it, a picture of chocolate chip cookies, a hazy circle on one end. I scratched, then I sniffed, then I was instantly transported to the Scholastic Book Fair in 1982.

“This is everything I ever wanted,” I said, joy welling in my heart. “Thank you.”

“You are very welcome,” she said, with a warm smile.

God, I love libraries and librarians.

Speaking of things I love and awkward, abrupt segues, I love love love ALL CAPS LOVE this little me plushie, which is only available until the end of the month. As I understand it, the business model for YouTooz is to take pre-orders and fill them, then retire the design. So this probably isn’t coming back. I just checked, and 177 have been ordered, which makes this kind of a cool limited edition thing. Anyway, I adore this little guy, and I want to make sure everyone else who may feel the same way has a chance to get one before they are gone. So now you know. Tell your friends.

The final book I scored in my summer reading program was Fabulous Bodies, by Chuck Tingle. It stuck with me, and I ended up writing a little bit of a review that I would like to share:

Okay, that’s all for today. I have some family visiting, and we are going to have some fun together, as soon as I finish work, which is right … now.

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Hi I’m Wil and I’m glad you’re here. I write this blog. I host It’s Storytime With Wil Wheaton, and the official companion podcast for Stuart Fails To Save The Universe with Felicia Day, both available wherever you get your podcasts. I am the New York Times bestselling author of Still Just A Geek. My narrations of Monsters of Ohio, by John Scalzi, and The Ship of Death, by Kyle Winkler, are now available wherever you get your audiobooks. If you’d like to get my posts delivered to your inbox, here’s the thingy:

Saturday, Anne and I celebrated our 27th wedding anniversary by being tourists in our own city. We got a little fancy, and went to The Broad museum in Downtown. I love their permanent collection (one of these days, I’m eating a gummy to go giggle myself into oblivion at the giant table and chairs), but we were both super excited to see the Takashi Murakami exhibit they have out right now. They did not disappoint; getting inches away from some of these pieces was extraordinary. If you’re local, remember that the Broad is free.

From there, we took the Angel’s Flight (first time, ever, for either of us) down Bunker Hill to Olive, and walked to the library. Y’all, the Angel’s Flight is so great. It’s a short funicular ride in a tiny car that feels like it hasn’t changed since the day they started operations. It’s not even a minute, but is still kinda magical. I have driven past it hundreds of times a year, for decades, and never even thought about riding it. But it was right there, and we were deliberately being tourists, so we bought our tickets and hopped on. I’m so glad we did.

We walked a big loop down to Pershing Square, and up 5th Street to the library. The last time I went there, I was in high school, probably sophomore year. My studio teacher, Marion, took me there on a field trip, specifically to do research using the vast resources that the public library offered.

I did the whole thing, with the card catalog, the microfilm thing, old newspapers, all that stuff. It was so much fun, and so satisfying, and my old man brain has completely forgotten whatever it was I learned about that day. All I remember is how exciting and overwhelming it was to have access to so much information, so many primary sources. Oh, buddy, just you wait for Wikipedia. You have no idea.

The library wasn’t that busy, but I was so happy to see the media labs and creative areas just full of people. Some kids stopped me for a picture. I asked them what brought them to the library, and they told me they were there to make posters and materials to promote their poetry shows in the valley. How fucking awesome is that? God, I love artists so much! And I love that our public libraries offer materials and facilities to support artists at no cost.

We spent a lot of time in the library. There are a lot of great exhibits up right now, including a giant pop-up book that actually works, even though it’s about the size of two billboards. There are many exhibits celebrating the library’s 100th anniversary, and they’re all written in English and Spanish. I’ve been learning Spanish with Babbel for awhile, and I’m starting to get to a place in my education where I can read the Spanish, understand most of it, and infer the parts I don’t know from the context that I do. This is the first foreign language I’ve ever learned, so I don’t know what milestone that is, but it felt so satisfying to experience.

From the library, we went into the Biltmore, which has historic significance in our family, to get out of the heat and have a Coke. We sat in this little bar together, quietly away from anyone else, and just sipped our sodas.

I said, “I love that we are being tourists in our own city, on our anniversary, because this is exactly what we’d be doing if we went away.”

“I love this too,” Anne said.

“And I know I say it all the time, but goddamn do I love being married to you. I just love Us so much. I love being part of Us.”

“Yeah, I love it too,” she said. She sipped her Coke and I did the same. “Happy anniversary.”

We clinked our glasses.

“Twenty-seven years. Still punk as fuck.”

“Still punk as fuck.”

We giggled like the dorks we are, settled up our tab, and headed back into the surprisingly suffocating November heat. We rode the Angel’s Flight back up the hill (I got to help a lady with her stroller, which I only mention because I rarely get an opportunity to help a lady with her stroller, and I love it when I get to be a helper), then we went to dinner.

It was, like everything else we did that day, just wonderful.

I’m so lucky, and so grateful to be married to my best friend, my partner in crime, my ride or die, for 27 years. What’s wild is, we both feel like we’re just getting started.

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Hi, I’m Wil. I narrate audiobooks and host It’s Storytime With Wil Wheaton. Sometimes I’m an actor on TV. Sometimes I write this blog. I’m on Instagram and Threads @itswilwheaton. My Tumblr is wilwheaton.tumblr.com. My bologna has a first name, it’s S-U-B-S-C-R-I-B-E if you want to get these posts in your e-mail. Here’s the thingy: