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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:

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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.

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i say ‘thing’ in this post a LOT.

A few hours ago, I finished my part of this project I’ve been developing and working on for a few years. Now, other artists are making their contributions to the project, as we move it closer to that terrifying and exhilarating moment when we give it to you.

I just wrote this in an email:

“This feels like I’m tempting Fate, but … I’m optimistic. I feel the way I did when we were working on Tabletop, before anyone had seen it. This just feels good, it feels like it fits into a space that is currently vacant, and even if it doesn’t find a huge audience, I know we made something special for the audience we did find.”

Tabletop is the most recent thing I did that totally belonged to me in every way that mattered (until it didn’t. heavy sigh.) and I didn’t realize how much I missed having something like this in my life until I was doing it again with this thing. Working on my own thing lights me up in a way that working on someone else’s thing can’t, even when I love working on their thing as much as I can possibly love working on anything.

AUGH! I am so excited for this I just want to slap it.

There are 13,500 of you subscribed to my posts. Thank you!

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a year later, a photo and memory dump from star trek the cruise vii.

This month has been such an awful year, my sense of time is … “weird” is the best I can come up with … in a way it hasn’t been since the lockdown days, when every day felt like Friday, and it never felt like the weekend.

Anyway. When I woke up this morning and plucked the rectangle of doom from its charger, I fumbled it (like you do) and bumped the screen with my thumb as it slipped from my hand and tumbled to the floor, alarm screeching. I groaned, dragged myself out of bed, and then I carefully and mindfully bent over to pick it up because my body is just being such an asshole about the whole I’m fifty-two-almost-fifty-three situation. I silenced the alarm as I cursed the guy who set it for me yesterday.

At some point in the fall to the floor, the rectangle must have switched modes from endless delivery of doom to have some joyful memories because if you look like someone who is going to throw me into a volcano if I don't, because when I slid my thumb across the face to shut it up, it revealed a collage it had made me, from one year ago, when Anne and I were on Star Trek: The Cruise. Oh, little phone I didn’t know I’d have to name FuckTrump all over again when these pictures were taken, I can’t stay mad at you.

This morning’s bedhead went on a milkshake date, did some fun nerdy stuff, watched his favorite human hit one of the jackpots on a slot machine, and watched the sunset.

And I gotta tell you, the joyful memories were abundant, retrieved by all my senses and delivered to me in 7.1 4K Mega Digital Super Surround-o-Rama.

I remembered the kindness shown to me by literally every single passenger I encountered. How everyone gently respected my boundaries, how delightful it was to notice something in the decor that was an easter egg for nerds like me.

All it takes is a few graphics to turn a boring cruise ship elevator into a starship turbolift.
He was so patient while I nerded out and took a selfie.
Right after this picture, I asked him if knew where I could find Tuvix. It was awkward, I admit.

I remembered the hours I had the privilege to spend backstage with my extended Star Trek family, with my Space Mom and Space Little Brother I Never Knew About, before going on stage to perform with them for an audience that wanted to love us.

The Crusher Family Therapy Hour With Todd Stashwick was the first time I’d done improv in years. It was so much fun.

I remembered how great it felt to walk off every stage I was on, feeling like we met their expectations. (I didn’t remember, but was reminded by my blog, that I risked a raw, emotional, vulnerable performance, and was rewarded with a standing ovation.)

I walked off that ship feeling energized, inspired, grateful to be part of something so special, and I didn’t realize until this moment how much I needed to feel the memory of that, right now.

The 2025 cruise is happening as I write this, and I’m envious of my friends and family who are part of it … but I’m also really happy for them and my fellow nerds, because I remember.

I sent this picture to my godson, and he sent back “Who are you supposed to be in that picture? Is it AI?” I guess my sister hasn’t introduced him to Star Trek.
“Mom, I want Wesley.”
“We have Wesley at home.”
Wesley at home:

Thanks for reading, friends. I hope this finds you well. Before you go, if you haven’t subscribed to updates, I’d love for you to do that. I have an incredible announcement coming, and I don’t want you to miss it. (That’s why these horrible reminders are all over the place). A huge thank you and terrorist fist jab to the 13,000 of you who got this in email! I appreciate you.

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W.O.R.K (N.O. Nah, No No My Daddy Don’t)

My work life is weird. Most people have a reliable schedule and know when they’ll work, and how much. They can plan out their week, their month, and their budget accordingly. But not me. I will go weeks or months without a job, and then work my face off for 45 straight days. I’ll look at an empty week on my calendar that suddenly fills up before the end of Monday. I’ll have zero jobs and a wide open calendar for weeks at a time, and then four jobs all want me and they can only work at exactly the same time so I have to choose just one. (I hate it when that happens. I’d do so much more cool stuff if not for the constant conflicts).

I mean, look, this as far as problems go, as far as uncertainty goes … this is not the worst thing. I love how much I get to just do my own thing, usually whenever I want to, it’s not the worst thing! But I also am not crazy about that uncertainty. To make it less intense, we made a choice about 15 years ago to keep a year of liquidity in savings, just in case. Knock on wood, we haven’t needed it. And to take even more control over my life and career, I started developing this project that, if it finds its audience, could become the thing I do full time. I would love that. You have no idea.

This week, I’ve been working my face off on what feels like the final lap of this passion project I’ve been developing for a couple of years. Late last year, after a long development process that felt at times like it would never end, I started work on the thing. Last week, we hit a significant milestone that allowed us to set a release date on the calendar for next month, and I’ve spent all day every day this week doing so much writing for it, my fingers are numb and my brain is mush. I want to keep going, but the flesh is spongy and bruised.

It’s been a nice break from the horrors, though, and I have been so grateful for that. It reminds me that, even though everything is terrible and America is in the middle of a fascist coup, we still need breaks from the fight to restore our hit points and our mana. We need to step away from the fire hose of social media and all of its algorithmically-driven agitation and addiction. We need to breathe and taste the air and practice some quiet self care. As an entertainer, I can help create that space for anyone who wants or needs it. That’s how I can be a Helper. That’s what I want to do with my work, and that’s what this project is all about.

I really want to make sure you know about this when it releases. The best way to make sure you do is by signing up for email alerts when I make pots posts on my blog. If I did what I think I did, you should be navigating about ninety thousand popups and reminders that you can subscribe.

Here’s one more.

Okay bye!

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