I am deeply grateful to the US and Nordic communities of larpers, to whom I owe the deepest debt a writer can owe. A great many gamers, GMs, and game designers generously shared their time with me, although only a handful appear in this book. To everyone who sat down with me for fifteen minutes or multiple hours, thank you—I learned something new from every conversation.
My immersive research would have been impossible without the cooperation of James C. Kimball of Knight Realms, and Avonelle Wing, Kate Beaman-Martinez, and Vincent Salzillo of Double Exposure.
Several gamers went above and beyond to help me in the course of my research. Special thanks to my guides to the world of larp: Geoffrey Schaller, for his all-around kindness, for many introductions, and for generously answering every question I lobbed his way over more than three years; and Gene Stern, who endured numerous interviews, explained rules, arranged rides to Knight Realms for me, and so much more. I am also grateful to Brendan O’Hara, Liz, and Jeramy Merritt for putting me up at conventions and helping me run the Cthulhu larp in Chapter 11.
Any larper will tell you that the best thing about larp is the people. Thanks to the Knight Realms and Avatar communities, which made me feel welcome, especially Jason Michaeli, Frank Martinez, Renny Stern, George Pereira, Ian Penny, and the rest of the FishDevil team, along with Carol Stanley, Terri DePrima, Molly Mandlin, Charlie Spiegel, Michael Smith, and the court of Drega’Mire.
The following people greatly assisted me in reporting several chapters: Anthony Lodato transcribed hours of taped interviews and conversations; Scott Trudell hipped me to Elizabethan pageantry; Major Cory Angell arranged my visit to Fort Indiantown Gap; Associate Professor Mark Rom of Georgetown reviewed my account of Knight Realms’s economics; the members of the LARP Academia listserv alerted me to Atzor, the Nordic scene, and military larp; and Tobias Demediuk Bindslet helped me navigate the Nordic scene and reviewed my Nordic chapters. I’m also grateful to the crowd that attended a Vampire game with me at DREAMATION 2010 and the vast, transatlantic group of gamers who answered my many technical queries via Facebook. Jaakko Stenros and Markus Montola, editors of the incomparable Nordic Larp, provided useful feedback on an early version of the manuscript and patiently answered many queries. Sarah Miles first told me of larp’s existence.
My father’s comments and copyedits were almost as valuable as the love and encouragement that he and my mother offered. My husband, George Locke, provided unwavering support. The Fringe armada helped me find the time. Urban Waite and Chip Cheek read drafts, helped me battle the challenges of solitude, and cheered me on from afar. Thank you.
Thank you to my agent, Jane Dystel, my editor, Cynthia Sherry, and all the other people at Chicago Review Press—especially Michelle Schoob and Mary Kravenas—who worked so hard to make this book a reality.
Samuel Freedman, who runs the book seminar at the Columbia journalism school, was the first one to believe I could write this volume, and I owe a special debt of thanks to him and to all the other tough writing instructors I’ve been lucky enough to study with over the years, particularly Pamela Painter, but also Sally Alexander, Joeseph Hurka, DeWitt Henry, Margot Livesey, and Sanford Padwe. To paraphrase a Flannery O’Connor story, I wish you were there to shoot me every day of my life.