In the late 80s and early 90s, David Sedaris was an Art Institute graduate living in Chicago, trying to figure out what to do with his life. After seeing him read at a Milly’s Orchid Show, Ira Glass, then with NPR, asked Sedaris if he had any Christmas-themed essays. As it turns out, he did: the soon-to-be-legendary “SantaLand Diaries,” which chronicled his experience as an elf at Macy’s.
I started writing in a diary when I was 20 years old, but I didn’t write a story until I was 27. I recently spoke to my first writing teacher about that story, and he said, “I remember that piece! That was such a great parody of Raymond Carver!”
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It just came one day. When I was in high school, I would read the assigned books, but it never meant much. I remember having to read Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. I hated it. I had to force myself through that book—just awful.
I think that it was helpful for me that I dropped out of college at 19 and took some time off from school. I had gone to Western Carolina for a year, and I then made it through two-thirds of a year at Kent State. I ultimately left college, and I didn’t come back for seven years. So when I finally returned to school, I was a lot older than the other undergraduates. I had had some experience by that point, and I think that helped with the writing.
It’s too densely written. It’s trying too hard. The way that the sentences are put down on paper just bothers me.
I don’t even go into that neighborhood anymore, I’m so afraid of running into her. And if I did run into her, she’d have every right to spit in my face.
I wrote a story called “The Incomplete Quad.” I did hitchhike from Ohio to North Carolina with a quadriplegic. But did the quadriplegic ask my father for his belt? No.
