Non-Fiction/Journalism

Here's a sample of the hundreds of feature stories, articles, essays, reviews and commentaries published by Ethan Gilsdorf: 

 >FEATURE/POP CULTURE: Experience Magazine: "Forget football. Video games are the next big college sport"

 >FEATURE/POP CULTURE: The New York Times: "In a Chaotic World, Dungeons & Dragons Is Resurgent"

>PERSONAL ESSAY: Experience Magazine: "‘Creative trespassing’ sets me free: What a grown man has in common with Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit"

>PERSONAL ESSAY: Boston Magazine: "The Day My Mother Became a Stranger: After a sudden aneurysm, Ethan Gilsdorf’s mother was transformed. Almost 37 years later, the author searches for answers.”

>FEATURE/TRAVEL: New York Times: “36 Hours in Boston”;  "36 Hours in Cambridge, Mass.," ; "36 Hours in Portsmouth, N.H."

 >FEATURE/POP CULTURE: New York Times: "A Game as Literary Tutorial: Dungeons & Dragons Has Influenced a Generation of Writers"

>COMMENTARY/TECHNOLOGY: WBUR Cognoscenti: "The Cost Of Engagement: Why I'm Against Online Comments"

>FEATURE/TRAVEL: National Geographic: "14 Reasons to Go To New Hampshire Now"

>COMMENTARY/POP CULTURE: USA Today "Instead of Muppets, most wanted is originality" 

>REVIEW/MOVIE: WBUR/TheARTery: "'Black Panther' Rises To Top Of Marvel Pantheon With Its Own Powerful Myth"

>FEATURE/TRAVEL: The New York Times: "Tracking Thoreau Through a Land 'Grim and Wild'"

>COMMENTARY/Books: WBUR/The ARTery: "Amazon Should Leave Brick-And-Mortar To The Little Guys"

>FEATURE/POP CULTURE-FIRST PERSON: Boston Globe: "The '80s? Stranger things have happened" (a re-enactment of the 1980s for a day)

 >REVIEW/MOVIE: WBUR/The ARTery: "Resistance Isn't Futile: 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' Delivers, With Rebellious Detours Along The Way"

>REVIEW/BOOK: New York Times Book Review: "Misfit Creatures, Otherwise Known as Kids Today: review of "GORK, THE TEENAGE DRAGON" and "EVERYONE’S A ALIEBN WHEN UR A ALIEBN TOO"  

>FEATURE/HISTORY-FIRST PERSON: Boston Globe: "Pilgrim for a day" (undercover as a histroical reenactor a Plimoth Plantation")

>REVIEW/BOOK: New York Times Book Review: "'Gamelife: A Memoir,' by Michael W. Clune," 

>COMMENTARY/MOVIES: Wired: “Peter Jackson Must Be Stopped”

>ESSAY/TRAVEL: New York Times: “Hanging Around the Airport, and Liking It,” 

>REVIEW/BOOK: New York Times Book Review: “John Darnielle’s ‘Wolf in White Van’”

>INTERVIEW/MOVIES: Esquire: "Why Ben Kingsley Is So Good at Playing Villains"

>COMMENTARY/MOVIES: Salon: “Why can’t Caesar the ape win an Oscar?: It’s time for the academy to embrace digitally enhanced performances” 

>GAMING/POP CULTURE: Salon: “All I needed to know about life I learned from “Dungeons & Dragons” 

>GAMING/POP CULTURE: Boston Globe Magazine: “Board games are back, and Boston’s a player: A Golden Age of tabletop games, from nerdy to mainstream, is afoot.” 

>COMMENTARY: WBUR/NPR's Cognoscenti: "A New Hope: Can JJ Abrams Appease The ‘Star Wars’ Faithful?" (link here to my other NPR commentaries)

>POP CULTURE: New York Times: "When Defending Earth Cost 25 cents": a feature about classic arcade games

>MOVIES: Boston Globe feature series all about THE HOBBIT, including Main feature: The Hobbit Emerges; an interactive Map of Middle-earth with annotation and character guide; The Hobbit cheat sheet; Making Middle-earth; The Hobbit by the Numbers.

>LIST/GAMING: Wired: Prescription drug or D&D monster? You take the test.

>FEATURE/POP CULTURE-GAMING: New York Times: "Take This Mitt, and Pass Me the Broadsword" (about Curt Schilling's video game company)

>FEATURE-PROFILE:MOVIES: Boston Globe: "Viggo Mortensen sees through the eyes of an outsider"

>FEATURE/POP CULTURE-GAMING: New York Times: "Players Roll the Dice for Dungeons & Dragons Remake" (about the future of the game Dungeons & Dragons)

>ESSAY/HUMOR-RELATIONSHIPS: Boston Globe Magazine: "Geek Love: Can a gaming and fantasy fanatic find romance outside his realm?"

>ESSAY/TRAVEL: New York Times: "When ‘Home for the Holidays’ Involves Two Homes

>FEATURE/TRAVEL: Washington Post: "Boston's Harbor Islands shelter a multitude of surprises"

>FEATURE/POP CULTURE: Christian Science Monitor: "Video game museum gives arcade classics extra lives"

>PERSONAL ESSAY: Plenty: "Pedaling Love: Settling down with the bike of a lifetime doesn't come without its flings" 

>TRAVEL/CULTURE/HISTORY: The Walrus: "Breaking Old Ground: How to construct a castle the medieval way: one hand-carved stone at a time."

>MOVIES/CELEBRITIES: Boston Globe: "As colleagues, they hit on all cylinders: 'You Kill Me' director and stars form a mutual admiration society" (Sir Ben Kingsley, Tea Leoni)

>PSYCHOLOGY/POP CULTURE: Psychology Today: “Suburban warrior syndrome: From The Matrix to Harry Potter, heroic fantasy is hot stuff. These modern epics tap into our frustrated impulse to be 21st-century knights—and may even help unleash the workaday hero inside each of us.”

>TRAVEL/MOVIES: Boston Globe: It's otherworldly: Shooting Tolkien’s ‘Rings’ trilogy here was a capital idea for ‘Wellywood’ and its burgeoning film (and fan) industry

>HUMOR/RELATIONSHIPS: Boston Globe Magazine: "Get Over It: A 12-step program to heal even the most pathetic cases of heartbreak."

>TRAVEL: The Reykjavík (Iceland) Grapevine (originally appeared in The Boston Globe): "If You’re Not Smiling, It’s Not Delicious: Cooking and Travelling Thailand"

>MOVIES/CELEBRITIES: Boston Globe: "Not the retiring type: A group of aging iconoclasts still gets a kick out of an indie film like 'Chatham'" (David Carradine, Rip Torn, Bruce Dern)

>ESSAY: The Literary Traveler: "J.R.R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis: A Literary Friendship and Rivalry"

>TRAVEL: The Boston Globe: "Spirited & spiritual: On the coast of South India beach-bound tourists mix with Hindu pilgrims"

>TRAVEL: Washington Post: "Mountain Biking in France: Pedal Power" 

>POP CULTURE: The Boston Globe Magazine: "Lord of the Ka-Ching" -- Tolkien and Commercialism

>TRAVEL: Boston Globe: "I was a (bad) monk for a week" page 1 / page 2 

>TRAVEL ESSAY: Boston Globe: "Adventures, big or small, make the trip"

>RELATIONSHIPS: Boston Globe: "Just like starting over: After breaking up with a longtime partner, going out is hard to do"

>SCIENCE/ENVIRONMENT: Christian Science Monitor: "What is the value of a tree?

>NUTRITION: Christian Science Monitor: "Is it really just a bunch of Fluff?"

>PROFILE: Boston Globe: "She keeps the faith for death penalty opponents" (Sisten Helen Prejean)

>TRAVEL/SCIENCE: New York Times: "Boston, a Science Lovers kind of town"

>PROFILE/ENVIRONMENT: Christian Science Monitor: "The man who saves national park vistas"