Emma's Trivia Game Book

I've loved games for as long as I can remember. Before I knew about the New York Times Crossword, before I knew about Jeopardy. If I really think hard about where my love for fun facts, tricky themes, and aha! moments comes from, I'd picture myself in a sun beam, on the creaky dark hardwood floors of my childhood home, scribbling into a Highlights magazine. Spotting the difference, poring over the word search, furiously scanning the iSpy-esque still lifes. I've always loved the concept of tricking one's own brain, the clumsy ways in which we attempt to find patterns and connections in every aspect of life. 

Around 2003, a Lizzie McGuire diary that came into my life ushering in the next phase of this evolution was brought about by. Containing an inexplicable wealth of information, it awakened in me an obsession with memorization. Lists of state capitals, postal abbreviations, U.S. presidents,  and dog breeds made up random pages of the diary, and I brought it with me everywhere, silently quizzing myself whenever I got the chance. 

My passion for writing and editing grew along with a growing judgment of typos and poor wording. I watched Jeopardy daily and competed in school spelling bees and plays. I started writing music and stories and whenever opportunities to perform one of my many memorized tricks presented themselves, I jumped at them. 

In 2021, I began regularly attending a local trivia night. The host, a veteran trivia writer and emcee, asked me if I would consider hosting another local night put on by his company. After about 5 minutes of thinking on it, I accepted, with one caveat. I wanted to write all the content. For the last 5 years, I have written thousands of rounds of trivia and hosted multiple nights a week. The events have become wonderful community spaces, full of regulars, inside jokes, and years-long rivalries. 

In April of this year, 2026, I began posting videos from my events on Instagram and Tiktok, and to my absolute delight, the community quickly grew online. I have spent many hours since editing, compiling, combing through footage, captioning, and curating an engaging, thoughtful social media presence. It was also during this time that I began organizing my many years of written content into this play-along trivia book. It has been a priority for me to keep players off their phones, so a physical game was always my goal. 

I'm here on Kickstarter raising funds to make this trivia game book a reality. I hope to bring the fun of my live events to living rooms, road trips, and game nights across the world! I have spent a lot of time writing, editing, fact checking, and fine-tuning this book to be as perfect an encapsulation of that real-life magic as possible. 

This book is Volume 1, and I have so much more where it came from! I hope to expand the game to the various types of rounds I write for my events, kids trivia (which I host at local libraries), along with about a million other ideas! Sharing knowledge in a fun way is truly a passion of mine. I would be so honored if you would consider supporting this game.