All posts by Wil

Author, actor, producer. On a good day, I am charming as fuck.
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It’s Storytime with Wil Wheaton episode one – Rock Paper Scissors Love Death by Caroline M Yoachim

I suck at mornings, so it was kind of rough to get up earlier than usual so I could make it to KTLA to be on the morning news. But I was so excited to be there, and so excited my new podcast was finally out in the world, I practically jumped out of bed when the alarm went off.

Two cups of coffee and one surprisingly smooth commute into Hollywood later, I made a post on Instagram while I was in the Sam Rubin green room:

I’ve been on national and international broadcasts. Once, I was the guy BBC World Service went to for the governor election when Schwarzenegger ran the first time. True story!

But I’m one of those kids who loved the local news when I was growing up. It felt like something everyone watched and talked about. I don’t know if that persists in the current media landscape, but being invited to KTLA to talk about It’s Storytime with Wil Wheaton is a very big deal for me, easily as exciting and meaningful (maybe a little moreso) than all of that other stuff. While I wait to go on my inner child is doing zoomies while I do my best to maintain decorum in the green room.

It’s Storytime with Wil Wheaton dropped today, and you can find it wherever you get your podcasts.

I had a fantastic time while I was there. I felt more comfortable, more focused, more present than I expected. I always get nervous and I always feel like I’m a beat behind the action because a big part of my attention is burned on tracking reactions — how much am I fucking up? — than it is on just enjoying the moment.

I did this thing where I reminded myself that I was invited, that I deserved to be there, and the thing I was there to promote is genuinely a good thing that I worked hard to make, so it’s totally cool to feel proud and enjoy talking about it. I even mostly listened to myself!

They were so wonderful to me. I have had interviews with people who are obviously just doing their jobs, who aren’t interested in me or what I’m talking about beyond whatever their producer prepped for them. This wasn’t that, at all. All of the anchors at the desk were just lovely! They were genuinely interested in me before the segment started (crazy, since they have so much on their minds and so much pressure being live) and stayed that way until I was finished. I was totally floored by how welcomed and celebrated I felt.

Can anyone else see how the news team is like YO THIS IS GREAT while my posture is just DONT FUCK UP WIL BE COOL AND STAND THERE LIKE A NORMAL PERSON MAKE SURE YOUR POSTURE IS GOOD SO NOBODY LAUGHS AT YOU ugh. I will eventually be able to pose like a human in one of these pictures, I promise.

Anyway, I had a blast. The producer who took these pictures (I lost her name; sorry she was lovely) told me my segment would be online, and when it is, I’ll link to it. EDIT: Here it is! https://ktla.com/video/wil-wheaton-describes-recording-his-own-podcast/10573518/

Late yesterday afternoon, one of my friends told me they loved the episode, and asked me how I was feeling. I tried to nail down and describe all the complex emotions (many of them conflicting) roiling around inside of me, and I settled on something like this: You don’t celebrate winning the game because you got a single in the first inning that didn’t even get a run across, but you absolutely celebrate your first single of the season, and hope that it’s one of the many things you need to do to eventually win the game. All the while, you try to find a way to enjoy the game, because playing the game is so much fun (and it’s what you’ve dreamed about doing forever), while also taking the job of playing the game seriously. There’s a LOT of game left, but our starter is looking great and the bat just feels very comfortable in my hands today, and I’m doing my best to stay out of my own head and just see the ball. I’m not even thinking about the stuff that’s out of my control. Yet.

It’s incomplete and imperfect, but so am I, so that’s what you get.

But for now, I just wanted everyone to know that my first episode, an absolutely magnificent story by the wonderful Caroline M Yoachim, is just a podcast, standing in front of an audience, asking them to listen to it.

Enormous thanks and gratitude to all of you who have listened, rated and reviewed, and told your friends. I wouldn’t have gotten on base without you, and you’re going to be a huge part of why I score any runs.

Two bits of business before I elbow and send.

First, the subscribe to my blog emails thingy:

And finally, the obligatory collection of links to subscribe to It’s Storytime with Wil Wheaton:

Subscribe now at

Thanks for reading, everyone. I’m grateful for the opportunity to entertain you. It is a privilege that I do not take for granted.

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It’s Storytime with Wil Wheaton is almost … hear.

Saturday night, Anne and I went to a screening of a friend’s new movie, called Locked (it’s fantastic; a tight, clever, surprising thriller that I think is about late stage capitalism if you squint). While we were waiting to go in, we ran into one of our neighbors, and we were having the talk you have with neighbors who you’re friendly with, who you like, but who you don’t really know all that well. They’re kind people, though, and I always enjoy chatting with them.

As we were talking, I noticed someone over my neighbor’s shoulder was looking at me. I have seen this look innumerable times in my life from someone who knows my work, and is just confirming in their mental reference library that the guy in the Sisters of Mercy T-shirt is the same guy they saw on their TV.

I could have given him the “yep, it’s me” nod that I have watched my famous friends do for years, but that just felt weirdly uncomfortable in the moment so I didn’t let him know that I knew that he was in the process of knowing. I put my focus and attention on my neighbor and listened to him.

That’s when this guy closed the distance between us in a couple of strides, looked me square in the face and said, “WIL WHEATON! I CAN’T WAIT FOR YOUR PODCAST!” Then he disappeared into the crowd.

I just about fell over. As long as I can remember, people have been stopping me to tell me something about Stand By Me, or Star Trek, or Big Bang Theory. That’s awesome. I’m grateful that audiences enjoy and remember the work I have done for other people. It’s genuinely wonderful to know that. But this is the first time — ever — someone has come up to me out of a crowd and expressed excitement about a little project I created entirely on my own, paid for out of my pocket, and made precisely the way I wanted to make it, with the help of some extremely talented people. This didn’t even happen with Tabletop until we were deep into the second season.

It’s Storytime with Wil Wheaton is going to start hitting podcast apps in about 15 hours. It’s bracing that it’s actually here. I started working on this almost two years ago. More than once along the way, I ran into an obstacle that threatened to end it before it even began. More than once, the part of me that keeps Carrie’s Mom alive in my head yelled at me, “THEY’RE ALL GONNA LAUGH AT YOU!”* More than once, the fear of what may go wrong threatened to overwhelm and drown the excitement for what could go right.

But something inside of me kept telling me that this was a good idea. This was something that absolutely had an audience, if only I could find it.

This guy outside the AMC in Burbank (no, not that one, the other one) — a young guy, too! He couldn’t have been 30! — gave me this gift he didn’t even know he was giving me. His enthusiasm hit me like a super stimpack, and I let myself feel it.

That’s a huge thing for me, y’all. Growing up in a house where I was a target for the bully I had instead of a father taught me to keep everything that mattered to me as close to my heart and as far away from him and his mocking cruelty as possible. If I ever expressed joy or pride about something I did, he took it away from me and replaced it with humiliation. My brother frequently joined in on the fun while our mother sat quietly and let it happen. It wasn’t great.

Well … fuck that guy (disdainful). Fuck all of them, actually (celebratory). I’m so proud of myself and so excited for this thing I worked so hard to create. Of course I’m terrified! Of course I’m so nervous I can’t really eat! But that’s because I know I made something I feel good about, and I just really hope enough people respond to it to allow me to do more. I’m not worried that they’re all gonna laugh at me (and, for the record, Wil, that’s never happened so maybe you can stop doing that to yourself); I’m hopeful that they all find out about this thing I think they’re gonna love.

I know that a lot of you reading this have been with me for 25 years or so (holy shit can you believe that? Let’s take a moment to feel old, and to celebrate our defiant survival**!) with a front row seat to all the ups and downs, all the times things seemed bleak and all the times I got to celebrate something wonderful.

I had and have the courage and the drive to make this because I know that. I know that you all are there, because you’ve always been there, just beyond the glare of the footlights. I can’t always see you, but I can feel the energy out there in the darkness. I hear your laughter and applause. I can feel when something I make, because I thought it would be fun, turns out to be something you enjoyed or even loved.

I really believe that It’s Storytime with Wil Wheaton is one of those things, and by this time tomorrow, we will find out if I’m right, and I will get to make more seasons.

I will absolutely need your help to make that happen. If you listen and you enjoy it, please rate and review, like and subscribe, and above all: tell your friends who you think will also like it that they (and you)can subscribe now at

Thanks, everyone, for all the support you’ve shared with me for a quarter of a century (oh my god i am so old) and for making it possible for me to take a shot at finally having my dream job.

*If you get this reference, you should schedule your colonoscopy.

**If your survival has not been defiant, please substitute your appropriate experience. Mine has been all kinds of defiant.

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I made a thing!

Hi friends! I am so excited to announce It’s Storytime with Wil Wheaton, my new podcast. Our first episode drops on March 26th.

This idea emerged from my creative self the same way that Tabletop did. It spung, fully-formed, into my face when my friend who has been writing since we were in high school told me that he had finally been published.

I was so excited for him, and I loved his story so much, I thought it would be cool to narrate it for him, one friend to another, in celebration of something that’s been such a long time coming. As I pulled my mic out of the closet, and opened up Audacity to do one of my signature DIY, lo-fi thingies, a voice in my head said, “Hey, man. I think this could be the basis of a podcast. Hear me out: you’re a respected and acclaimed narrator. What if you looked for new works from great authors who haven’t yet found their audience, and narrated them? What if you used the privilege you have earned to help boost other people’s creative voices and careers?”

This was a good idea, I thought. But I didn’t know that anyone else would agree, so I attempted to tackle it entirely on my own.

Two miserable, frustrating months later, I concluded that I am not cut out to be a slush reader, or a content editor, and if I was going to move this from idea to thing, I needed help. So I asked some friends who had relevant experience, and built an all-star creative and technical team to do all the things I couldn’t, which allowed me to focus on narrating the stories, which is the part of this I know how to do.

I’m going to yadda yadda over the next year, which was marked by starts and stops, enormous technical challenges, and lots of very good work that kept me going through all of it, and jump ahead to last summer, at the Burbank airport departure terminal A.

I was there with LeVar Burton, waiting to board our flight to a convention.

LeVar had just finished his podcast, which I loved and listened to regularly. When I went looking for a similar podcast to replace it, I couldn’t find one that checked all the boxes that his did … and that’s when I realized I was making the podcast I wanted to hear, profoundly inspired by him and all of his work. I absolutely wasn’t going to move forward without his blessing; he’s family and I’m not going to step on his toes.

So I told him all about it, and asked him if he was cool with it.

To my utter delight, he was as excited about it as I am, and he encouraged me the way a loving parent or family member encourages their kid to follow their dream. Even if this podcast doesn’t find its audience, and only lasts one season, that moment will stay with me for the rest of my life.

I’ve been doing lots of press, and I’ll share those links when they are released. For now, I’d love for you to see the video I made of myself recording the trailer that dropped today:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Wil Wheaton (he/him) (@itswilwheaton)

Here’s everything you need to know, copied from my official podcast page:

You may recognize Wil Wheaton’s name from his acting work in television shows like The Big Bang Theory, Leverage, and Star Trek: The Next Generation, or 1985’s timeless classic, Stand By Me. You may recognize his voice from one of the many audio books he’s narrated, including number one New York Times bestseller, Ready Player One, John Scalzi’s award-winning Collapsing Empire Trilogy, or even his own bestselling memoir, Still Just A Geek.

Now, Wil brings you It’s Storytime, with Wil Wheaton, a weekly audiobook podcast, featuring stories that Wil loves, pulled from the pages of Uncanny, Lightspeed, On Spec, and others. You’re going to meet authors you don’t yet know you love, including some who are being narrated for the very first time. Listeners will travel through time, meet some gods, watch people fall in and out of love, and more, brought to life by Wil’s remarkable narrative voice.

It’s Story Time With Wil Wheaton is available wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes drop every Wednesday, beginning March 26.

Subscribe now at

I hope you’re as excited about this as I am, and I hope you’ll help me let other people who would enjoy this, know that it exists. The easy part was narrating all these stories and writing all the stuff that went with it; the hard part is helping it reach its audience.

I’ll be checking comments for the next few hours, if you have any questions.

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eagles and books and odds and ends

In a wonderful little neighborhood called Larchmont, there’s a wonderful little bookshop called Chevalier’s.

A friend of mine ran into Patrick Stewart there today, and when my friend mentioned that to me, I was reminded of the day a few years ago when Patrick saw my book there, and he texted me a picture of it, because he was excited for me. I’d misplaced that memory, and I’m so grateful that I found it today.

This isn’t Chevalier’s. This is Vroman’s in Pasadena.

I was going to post that on Bluesky, but it was too long. Rather than break it up across posts there, I took it as a reminder that my blog exists for a reason, and this is absolutely a lovely little memory that I can share on at Friday afternoon.

While I have your attention, I want to share some stuff that’s come across my event horizon recently. It’s on the other side of the thingy.

Continue reading… →
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slava ukraini

A raised fist in the colors of the flag of Ukraine, on a black background. Beneath it, between yellow horizontal lines, the words I STAND WITH UKRAINE.

Trump and Vance really put the tyrant in tantrum, didn’t they? Pathetic. Weak, cowardly, sniveling little bullies is all that they are.

I understand that I’m just one person who voted against all of this. I understand that this is just my blog. I understand that when the history of this is written, I will not even be a footnote.

But it is still important to me to go on the public record: The way Trump and Vance treated the President of Ukraine was despicable. It was a betrayal of an ally that is fighting for its very existence. As an American, I am disgusted with the rulers of my country. I am disgusted with their supporters, who ought to be ashamed of themselves.

To the people of Ukraine, I am so sorry. 75 million of us did everything we could to stop this. but there is a white supremacist cancer in America’s blood, and the 2024 election confirmed that it has metastasized. For what it’s worth, I stand with you, as I stand against the tyrants who disrespected your president yesterday.

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