Geek love: Wil Wheaton comes to the Festival of Books

Many people know Wil Wheaton as an actor ("Stand By Me," "Star Trek: The Next Generation"). And he's been blogging and doing cutting-edge tech stuff for so long that he's serious Twitterati -- 479,172 followers and counting.

And if all those people start thinking of him as an author, that would be a good thing. Although he has other writing credits, he's really good at memoir, which he sells though his website. Wheaton writes with fluidity, humor and honesty, tapping a sincerity that's unexpected for someone with his kind of celebrity/hipster bona fides. As he tried to say in his first book, he's just a geek, which is why all the webheads love him.

He'll be at the L.A. Times Festival of Books on Saturday at 10:30 a.m.; we hear there's a tweetup following his panel too.

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Comments

[Awesome Robot]

Very charming. Wil is a great ambassador for geekdom.

[Tia]

Wow, Wil... you knocked it out of the park! Great interview.. made me smile :)

[Thiefree]

You're not wrong about the webheads; Wil's got surprising amounts of people power. It's a well-known fact that whenever a webcomic references him, the server goes down under the strain the next day!

Personally I love Just a Geek. Wil's a warm, charming, intelligent writer, and I'd recommend his books to anyone.

[tom]

Wil, great job. I have mixed feelings about the morning talking heads, but you held out well.

[T]

Great interview. I've been reading Wil's online material since one day in April 2000 while sitting at work wondered what ever happened to "that kid on star trek". I was pleasantly frightened and in awe of his level of geekosity.

[daniel Paek]

KTLA director / cameramen: settle down and let the interview play. stop with the jib, it's annoying.

go Wil.

[Travis Richey]

Really, really well done, Wil. Very articulate and funny! ~Trav