Star Wars Memories: My Time In The (Death Star) Trenches
by Craig Miller (Author), Gary Kurtz (Foreword)
Independently published
ISBN-13: 978-1696218702
$24.99

Next up is a gift that will be a pure delight for long-term Star Wars fans. It’s an in-depth, first-person account of what it was like to be inside the Lucasfilm machine before it was really an operational machine.

Craig Miller was the original Director of Fan Relations at Lucasfilm, working on Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. As part of that job, he was a publicist, a writer, an editor, and a producer.

Miller wrote press material and articles, created and ran the Official Star Wars Fan Club, oversaw a staff who opened and responded to the seeming tons of fan mail the films received, worked with licensees, created a telephone publicity stunt that accidentally shut down the state of Illinois’ phone system, was the producer on projects ranging from episodes of Sesame Street to commercials for Underoos (“underwear that’s fun to wear”), operated R2-D2, and spent weeks hanging out on the set of The Empire Strikes Back.

In Star Wars Memories he talks about all of that and more, including Mark Hamill barbecuing him a burger in London, having lunch in a Sunset Strip restaurant with Harrison Ford while he rolled and smoked a joint, and watching Carrie Fisher introduce The Empire Strikes Back’s British production crew to tacos.

In the words of Gary Kurtz, producer of Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, “Star Wars Memories gives a look at the original Star Wars films and Lucasfilm from Craig Miller’s unique perspective. This isn’t another ‘making of’ book with the same stories and information that have appeared in other books and countless magazine articles. It’s a book of stories you haven’t heard before; an insider’s look from someone who, himself, is a fan and found the whole experience joyful and exciting. These stories are told in a way that brings you in and makes you feel like you were there.”

Star Wars Memories: My Time In The (Death Star) Trenches is a fun trip down memory lane for folks who loved Star Wars before it was a Disney property and a marketing behemoth. Travel back to the days before “special editions,” prequel and sequel trilogies and streaming services and relive the early days of Star Wars, back when it belonged to the nerds.

You can order this privately-published book from Amazon.