Lincoln Stollard, who I met at the GAMA Trade Show a few years back, just told me that he’s completed work on a book called The Learning Project. In it, Lincoln interviews dozens of people in different fields to discover different ways in which people learn. It’s aimed at teenagers, to show them that there are all sorts of different ways to become educated about anything, but anyone curious about such things should enjoy it. Lincoln’s looking for a publisher for a dead-tree version of the book, but you can enjoy his work online right now for free.

Lincoln interviewed me as one of the three writers profiled in the book. He caught me on the tail end of an exhausting, fun-filled show (aren’t they all?), and I was probably a bit more scattered and candid than normal. If you’d like to know about me and how I got here, his interview of me is an excellent place to start.

Tomorrow Is Yesterday, the first game and comic-book shop I regularly shopped at as a kid, went under late last year. I had heard that they and Black Hawk Hobby Distributors, which were both owned by the same people, were having troubles last year, but it had been a while since I’d been able to get down to Rockford, Illinois, to visit.

Today, I had to run down to Rockford to trade in my son Pat’s violin for a larger one from Asher’s Violin Shop. He’s grown, and needs the next size up. On my way back, I tried to stop by Tomorrow Is Yesterday and found that Top Cut Comics had replaced it.

The new owners have done a fine job with the place, although they place a lot more emphasis on their Pokémon league and tournaments. They cleared out nearly half the store for gaming tables, and they had a bunch of kids in there playing when I stopped by. I’ll miss the old place and the people who ran it, but hopefully Top Cut will be around to soldier on in their stead for years to come.

Friday night, I handed off my duties as the quads’ soccer coach to take Marty to see Sylvia Earle accept the Roy Chapman Andrews Award. She is an amazing woman who’s done incredible things, and her presentation was a lot of fun. Unfortunately, Marty and I were both fighting colds, so we bailed out before the absolute end of the event.

The Beloit Daily News put the event on the front page, along with a photo of Bill Green (director of the Logan Museum) and my father giving Earle the award. For Marty and me, the oddest part was hearing my dad referred at as “the Honorable Ken Forbeck.” To us, proud of him as we are, he’s just Grandpa/Dad rather than Judge Forbeck.

Either way, Dad did a great job of discharging his duties as this year’s president of the Roy Chapman Andrews Society. I keep thinking I’d like to write a Roy Chapman Andrews novel one of these days. First, though, I have to finish Vegas Knights!

A couple weeks back I wrote about the efforts of DriveThruRPG.com and many of its affiliated publishers to raise money for Haitian relief work. This included selling a huge bundle of RPG products worth nearly $1,500 for only $20.

The promotion is over now, and it was a stunning success. I’m told that DriveThruRPG.com will be cutting a check for nearly $180,000 to Doctors Without Borders. ICv2.com has all the details.

I couldn’t be prouder of the great people who put this together and those who chipped in for the cause. Go gamers!

Back in November, I mentioned that James Taylor is using Kickstarter to help fund a game he’s creating and selling as part of his college education: The Gentlemen of the South Sandwiche Islands. I’m pleased to report that James smashed through his fundraising goal for the game and will be going to press soon. If you’d still like to order a copy, you have until February 9, 2010, to get to it.

Here’s an open call for my artist friends out there. The fine folks at Cubicle 7 are looking for new freelance artists. In addition to publishing several excellent RPGs, including the new Doctor Who game, they recently announced that they have the license for a new RPG based on The Lord of the Rings, so this could be a lot of fun for the right people.

Here’s the full announcement:

Read the rest of this entry »

Today would be the 126th birthday of Roy Chapman Andrews, the legendary archaeologist upon whom Indiana Jones is supposedly based. Andrews was born and raised here in my hometown of Beloit, WI, and he lies buried in a cemetery only four blocks away from my home. He’s one of Beloit’s most famous offspring—although this week that honor probably goes to Jim Caldwell, coach of the Super Bowl-bound Indianapolis Colts.

Several years back, some Beloiters got together to form the Roy Chapman Andrews Society, dedicated to preserving the man’s history and legacy. My dad’s been a part of this for years, and this year he’s serving as the organization’s president. The biggest event the RCAS runs every year is to give a modern-day explorer the Roy Chapman Andrews Distinguished Explorer Award. People like Robert Ballard (who located the Titanic) and Steve Squyres (who heads up the Mars Exploration Rover mission) have won it in the past. This year, it’s going to the famed oceanographer Sylvia Earle.

Every year, the winner comes to accept the award in person and give a fascinating presentation at Beloit College’s Eaton Chapel. The event is open to the public and costs not one thin penny. I try to take Marty to it every year, and once the quads are interested enough to sit through such a talk, Ann and I will start bringing them too. This year, the event starts at 4:30 PM on Friday, February 5. If you’re around, don’t miss it.

P.S. Happy 75th birthday to another of my favorite Wisconsinites, Bob Uecker! No one ever makes baseball more fun to watch.

My friends at Kobold Quarterly (a D&D/d20 magazine ably edited by my Alliterate pal Wolfgang Baur) are giving away free PDFs of issue #10 for the next week. Until January 31, 2010, you can grab one for yourself by entering the coupon code KQ10Free at checkout. As Wolf’s lovely wife Shelly (a.k.a. Kobold Minion #1) tells me:

Issue #10 features an interview with Paizo’s Jason Bulmahn, Ed Greenwood’s Dwarven Goddess, Ecology of the Hill Giant, John Wick’s unique (and slightly disturbing) take on Halflings, Secrets of the Halberd, Monte Cook’s Game Theories,  Rampant Elf Lust, and more. We think it’s one of the best issues we’ve ever done.

I’ve long been a fan of Wolf and his work. Now, if you hustle on over, you can see why, for free.

In the wake of the Haitian disaster, my friends at DriveThruRPG.com offered to match any donations of $5 or $10 made through their site to Doctors Without Borders. They managed to raise a couple thousand dollars that way in a few days, but that wasn’t enough for them.

DriveThruRPG.com sells PDFs of tabletop roleplaying game products. They carry games and supplements from all sorts of different publishers, making them a huge one-stop shop for such things. They sent out a message to their publishers, asking them to chip in some PDFs as incentives for people to donate even more. When they totaled everything up, they had over 100 products worth a total of nearly $1,500—and they’re giving them away to anyone who donates $20 through their site to Doctors Without Borders.

In the first day, they raised about $50,000. As of the moment I write this, in the evening of the project’s second day, they’ve already topped $72,000. That’s over 3,600 donations, and they’re still going.

If you have any interest in tabletop RPGs or know anyone else who does, stop by and chip in. This is an insanely good deal for any gamer. If you’re terribly picky, you may not like or even care about 95% of the PDFs you get, but you’re sure to find at least a few gems. For those of us who like all sorts of games, this is a feast sure to overstuff you with gaming goodness.

If you want to chip in even more, stop by the GeekDad site and donate there too. If you give over $100 to Merlin USA, my pal John Kovalic of Dork Tower fame will send you an autographed copy of the first Dork Tower collection. Plus, every $15 gets you a chance to win other prizes.

It’s tough all over these days, but no one has it harder than the Haitians. Spread the wealth if you can spare it, and either way, spread the word.

Stacy Whitman—formerly one of the editors at Mirrorstone, the YA fiction imprint at Wizards of the Coast—is planning to start Tu Publishing to bring multicultural science-fiction and fantasy stories to kids of all ages. To launch this new effort, she needs some seed money, so she’s put up a page on Kickstarter.com. So far, the effort is about 63% of the way to its goal with just three days left to go—although it seems to have gotten a kick from a Boing Boing note that brought it up from the 40% it was at just yesterday.

I’ve kicked in a few bucks myself. If you’re interested in helped a fledgling publisher find its wings and bring some exciting new stories to kids, be sure to check it out. Consider it your holiday gift to the world.