Author Erica Victoria Espejo has not only been an anime fan since the 90s, she's been going to cons & writing about it for over 20 years! And now, she's written a book called The Fangirl Diaries: Finding Community in Anime Fandom of the 90s & 00s, chronicling early anime fandom and cosplay through her lived experience in it while growing up as a queer, femme Asian. Listen in as we discuss daring to share stories of cringey youth, the evolution of fandom, cosplay, and anime conventions, and what it was like to write a book about it all. 

Stream the episode or [Direct Download]

Relevant links:

• Buy Erica's book using my affiliate link at Bookshop.org, Amazon, or directly from the publisher!
• Check out Erica's website for over 20 years of her anime convention coverage!
• Follow Eri on Twitch to watch her "Fansview Friday" streams live, or follow her Youtube account to watch the VODs
• Follow Erica's cosplay-focused Instagram and Tiktok
• And of course, follow her on Bluesky for updates on her writing and reports!

Bonus: Erica in her custom Baka-Con t-shirt she mentions this episode:

My theme song music was done by Kerobit! You can find more about them on their website!

As always, feel free to leave me your thoughts on this episode or ideas for future episodes here—or email me directly at [email protected].

Thanks for listening!