Creating Cultural Phenomenons

Michael Witwer is a lifelong gamer and gaming enthusiast. He holds degrees from Northwestern University and the University of Chicago. He is also a film and theater actor and marketing professional. Empire of Imagination: Gary Gygax and the Birth of Dungeons and Dragons (Bloomsbury USA) is his first book. The life story of Gary Gygax, godfather of all fantasy adventure games, has been told only in bits and pieces prior to this biography of Gygax from his childhood in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin to his untimely death in 2008. As Witwer shows, perhaps the most compelling facet of his life and work was his unwavering commitment to the power of creativity in the face of myriad sources of adversity, whether cultural, economic, or personal. Told in narrative-driven and dramatic fashion, Witwer has written an engaging chronicle of the life and legacy of this emperor of the imagination.

Nathan Ward, who was an editor with American Heritage, has written for the New York Times and other publications. He is the author of Dark Harbor: The War for the New York Waterfront. His latest book is The Lost Detective: Becoming Dashiell Hammett (Bloomsbury USA) While Dashiel Hammett's life on center stage has been well-documented, the question of how he got there has not. That largely overlooked phase is the subject of Nathan Ward's enthralling The Lost Detective. Hammett's childhood, his life in San Francisco, and especially his experience as a detective deeply informed his writing and his characters, from the nameless Continental Op, hero of his stories and early novels, to Sam Spade and Nick Charles. Based on original research across the country, The Lost Detective is the first book to illuminate Hammett's transformation from real detective to great American detective writer, throwing brilliant new light on one of America's most celebrated and remembered novelists and his world.