The Kilmer Cure began life as a blog, thekilmercure.livejournal.com. The class was Writing for New Media, and I was in my second year of an MFA Writing program at the Savannah College of Art and Design. After that, I developed The Kilmer Cure into my graduate thesis, and then into the book that it is today.

No, wait, scratch that.

How it really began: I quit my job, moved 400 miles away from home all by myself, and stopped my psych meds, all in one fell swoop. I needed a friend. I needed stability.

I found Val Kilmer.

Val—or more specifically, his movies—helped me transition through this rough period of time. I hosted my own private Kilmerfest, burning my way through his filmography. It was something predictable, something comforting, something to counteract the newness and the strangeness and the helplessness of being off my meds.

Val Kilmer saved my life. In return, I wrote him this book.