Original subtitles

[MUSIC PLAYING]

I learned so much.

I feel like most of what I know I learned

by going to people's readings and by taking part in readings.

I would take part in readings where there were, like,

four or five or eight acts.

And somebody would get up there.

And they would say, do you want me

to read the thing that I wrote last Tuesday,

or do you want me to read that thing that I wrote a year ago

that I read a couple of times?

And I would be in the audience.

And I would think, you don't know what you're going to do,

like, you didn't prepare?

Simple things, like you need to be better dressed

than your audience, especially if you're

going to use certain language.

If you get up there and a t-shirt

and you say the word pussy, people in the audience

are going to think, really, we paid to hear that?

But if you have a tie on, they'll

say, well, that's an interesting word choice.

And also it just shows that you made an effort,

that it meant something to you to be there tonight.

Never get up there ever with a big stack of pages

and let people see your pages, because they're

going to think, oh, my god, we have to listen to all that?

And they are going to count your pages for you.

They're going to go, baby, listen,

how many more has he got in his hand, like 12?

They're just simply going to do that.

I've been to readings where people would get up and say

the first of these 12 poems.

And I'd think, oh, no, 12 poems?

And then you listen, and you think, 11 more, 10 more.

Every town has got some kind of an outlet

where they've got open readings, open mic things at a bookstore.

Go.

Go, even if you've been--

you know, even if you've already written three books.

It's just so good to go and be reminded of--

of what doesn't work.

People who read like this, and they don't ever look up--

or another thing I've noticed that I really--

it drives me absolutely crazy is if somebody reads something

and then they say, I knew that you were going

to laugh when I read that.

I mean, I laughed when I read it, so I knew that you were.

Then Michael went to the corner and he--

like, don't.

We don't want your asides, because your asides

are going to get--

if your asides get bigger laughs than what you're reading,

you're really in trouble.

By the same token, it doesn't work to set up.

Oh, my god, when people get up there and they say,

I'm going to read the second chapter from my novel,

and what you need to know here is

that Brenda and Carolyn are a lesbian couple,

and they have a son named Kyle.

On the morning that Brenda--

I'm sorry.

And I should add here that Brenda was married to a man,

and she divorced a man three weeks earlier,

three weeks earlier--

went to Kyle's wheelchair.

I'm sorry, I should've said this earlier.

Kyle is a baby, but he's also a quadriplegic.

And so he's completely paralyzed from the neck down.

Like, oh, my god, you're killing me here.

Like, just read from the very beginning of the novel.

But don't give me setup, because setup is just--

it's just taking a needle filled with--

I don't know-- whatever it is that makes people sleep.

And it's just putting it into the audience's neck

and just pumping it in there.

That's another thing you notice by going to people's readings.

I have a rule.

And I never stop for any reason.

If somebody's phone goes off, if a baby is crying,

power through, because if you stop

and you make a deal out of it, then that's live action.

And live action is--

anything can happen.

And that's much more interesting than what you're going to read,

because what's on your paper and what's in your book is

determined already, you know?

They're the same words tonight as they were last night

and those same words are going to be in your book

five years from now.

They aren't changing.

But if you're fighting now with somebody

in the audience about their cell phone, anything can happen.

And that beats reading from a book.

So I don't care what it is, stopping

is a mistake, because there's no point in starting again,

if you're going to have conflict with somebody,

and then say, now, where was I. It

doesn't matter where you were, because you just

lost the audience.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Nobody publishes a book without a dream.

And the dream, essentially, is my life.

I mean, it really is.

You know, I've sold 12 million books

and published in 27 different languages.

And I had absolutely really nothing to do with that.

I never sent a short story or an essay to anybody.

I never went to a theater and said, can I read here?

I never approached an agent about representing me.

The only thing I did was I was reading out loud in class

when I was in college.

And I was-- it was a creative writing class.

And I read an essay--

a short story that I had written.

And somebody came up and said, I'm

having a happening at my loft.

This is how long ago it was.

People used the word happening.

I'm having a happening in my loft.

Will you come and read something?

So I went.

And I read something.

And then somebody came and said, I'm

having a bigger happening at my better loft two weeks from now.

Will you read something?

And I said yes.

But I made sure I wrote something new

to read two weeks later.

And then two weeks later I read.

And somebody came up and said, will you read?

We have a group of people.

We're doing a reading, five people on the bill.

Will you be number six?

And I said yes.

And I wrote something new to read there as well.

I didn't want to be the person who, you know,

you read something, and it works,

so then you drag it around.

The other thing was Ann Patchett in her fantastic essay

on writing called "The Getaway Car,"

is when you're young and when you're--

when you're first getting started,

your job is just to stack up the pages,

to write something, learn from it, write something new.

I did that.

And I did it for a number of years.

And the audiences built up.

And so the biggest audience, probably, I

had when I was in Chicago was 700 people.

And it was a variety of shows.

So I wasn't the only person on the bill.

There were other people on there.

And then I thought, OK, well, I think

I need to move to New York City, because I would

like to have a book published.

But I'm going to have to-- somebody's going

to have to ask me, do you have a book we can publish?

And that happens in New York.

It doesn't happen in Chicago.

So I moved to New York.

And I had one reading scheduled when I moved to New York.

I was at The Kitchen.

And it was a group of other people.

We were all supposed to read for 10 minutes.

And I read for 10 minutes.

And then somebody came up and said, I'm an agent.

Are you looking for representation?

And I said, yeah, I am.

So he started representing me.

And then I had a collection of stories

that was a primitive version of my first book, "Barrel Fever."

And he sold it to a small gay press.

And it's nothing against being small or gay.

I'm small and gay.

But the small gay press, it just wasn't what I had in mind.

And I remember they called me in for a marketing meeting.

And the fellow made two suggestions.

He suggested I wear a baseball cap for my author photograph

so people would know I was gay.

This was when gay people wear baseball caps, before everybody

wore baseball caps, which are really just a horrible idea.

I mean, just baseball players should wear baseball caps.

And I really don't think anybody else should,

to tell you the truth.

But back then, baseball cap meant gay.

So to reiterate that I was gay, wear a baseball cap

for my author photo.

And marketing, he said, do you have a bike?

He said, what you could do was put a basket on your bike.

And you could drive around and sell books off your bicycle.

And it just really was not what I had in mind.

But I was too timid to say, can we get out of this?

This is not-- this is not really what I want.

And very luckily, the small gay press

went out of business a couple-- like a couple months

before the book was supposed to come out.

They went out of business.

And then I got a call from somebody

who had heard me read years earlier in Chicago.

And he said, would you like to be on National Public Radio.

And I said, yeah, I'd love it.

So I read something on National Public Radio.

And that has 10 million people listening to it.

And then an editor from Little Brown

called and said, do you have a book we can publish.

And I said, I've got it right here in a drawer.

I was waiting for you to call.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

So my first book came out.

And I-- all my life--

I know authors who say, oh, my god, I

have to go on a book tour.

Ugh, I dread it.

It's the worst.

I could not wait to go on my book tour, couldn't wait.

I'd been to a number of author events in my life in Chicago.

And I so clearly remember what it

was like to stand in line to get a book signed.

And I figure I'm not that terribly

different from everyone else.

So I'd stand in line.

And I would think, oh, my god, what am I going to say?

Everything I've said the person's

heard a hundred times before.

And the kindest of these authors would

notice how nervous I was and take that away from me, right?

They would-- they were warm.

And they would see me.

They would look at me.

They would acknowledge that I was a person.

And then there were others who--

I remember this one moment.

And I was a nervous wreck.

And I put my book on the table.

And she was talking to her publicist.

And she said, yeah, there's really not

that much to do in this town.

Took my book, signed it, pushed it back to me.

She didn't even look at me.

And I felt like such a fool.

And I thought, when it's my turn,

I'm going to see people until they get thirsty, you know?

I'm going to keep them in front of me.

And that's what I do.

I-- I have a conversation with everybody

who comes through the line.

When I first moved to New York City, I went to a play.

And it was Wallace Shawn.

It was a one man show, a monologue that he was doing.

And I'd read things by him before.

And I liked his movies, like "My Dinner with Andre."

And then I show up at the theater.

And it's a little theater.

And there's Wallace Shawn at the front door

shaking everybody's hand as they came into the theater.

And it was such a smart thing to do,

because if I hadn't liked the play of if I'd found it dull,

I would have thought, no, that's not the word.

Dull is not the right word.

Dislike is not the right word.

I know him.

I met-- I met him earlier.

He-- he and I know each other.

And I don't know that he was that calculating.

But I noticed as an audience member that that's what I felt.

I was so moved that he would take the time

to shake my hand, you know?

He didn't-- when he had a show to do.

I just thought, wow, that's a real class--

that's a lovely gesture.

Also another thing with a book tour is--

and I thought everybody did this when I first started off.

You know, I write a letter to everyone who drives me.

I write a letter to every bookstore.

I write a letter to everybody who interviews me,

a thank you letter.

And I thought everybody did that.

And I was really surprised to learn

that hardly anybody does it.

But it makes such a difference.

It just makes--

Bookstores remember that.

I've seen people in bookstores--

I know somebody who went into a bookstore, an author.

And he was nasty, right, to the staff.

And I talked to a young man who worked at the bookstore.

And he said, oh, I un-sell that book.

When people come up with that book, I say,

you know, we've had a lot of complaints.

Nobody really likes that.

You should read this instead.

That's what happens.

Those people remember.

And it's really important to--

to be polite.

And it's really important to be kind to the people who

bought your book.

And I've met people before who have it

in their contract that the driver's not

allowed to talk to them.

Or they get to the bookstore, and they

won't engage in any way with the people who work there.

And they just sign the book, and they push it back.

I mean, I understand if you're Michelle Obama,

and you've got thousands of people in line,

you can't take the time to talk to every person.

But for most authors, you're going to get to the bookstore,

and there are going to be 14 people there.

And it's not going to kill you to talk to 14 people.

You know, Tobias Wolff was somebody who--

is an author who I-- who I revere.

I think he's the finest short story writer in America.

His writing, my goodness.

A story of his would come out in a magazine.

And I would read it again and again.

And I would study it.

And he came to Chicago when I lived there.

And I couldn't believe that Tobias Wolff

was coming to Chicago.

And I literally sat at his feet.

And he was so kind to me.

If he hadn't been, I would have been-- just been destroyed.

But-- I will--

And then I saw him a couple weeks later at another event.

And he said, David.

And the fact that he remembered my name

and he called out my name in front of a roomful of people,

and they all looked at me, like, oh,

David's friends with-- that guy's friends

with Tobias Wolff.

I will-- I will never forget that the rest of my life,

that--

that kindness on his behalf.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

It's really important to be good to people

and to be nice to people and to--

and it's important to trust people, to trust people

to do their jobs.

I know people, when the book comes out,

they call their publisher and say, I went into the store,

and I didn't see my book.

I didn't see it in the front of the store.

And it was on the bottom shelf.

You never look for your book in a bookstore.

It's just-- it's just a recipe for disaster.

Don't do it.

When you call your publisher and you moan about the sales

and you moan that you haven't gotten

enough interviews and this and that,

it's not like they're going to drop everything

to make you happy.

They're not going to like you.

It's really important.

I know this sounds crazy.

But it's really important to be a likable person.

People like helping people.

Let people help you.

If you ask somebody for something or demand

that they do something, you're not allowing them to help you.

It's better just to present yourself, be the kind of person

that somebody wants to help.

And trust them to do their job.

I'll never forget.

There was this guy in England.

And he worked at the bookstore.

And his job was to help me through the reading.

And there was just something about him.

He was just so-- such a--

I was so curious about him.

And I said, what do you do?

And he said, well, I work here at the bookstore.

And I said, you-- there has to be more than that.

What else do you do?

And he said, oh, I write a little, you know?

I just-- like, what kinds of things do you write?

Well, I mean, I write--

I write-- you know, I write stories.

And I said, well, would you send me some?

Oh, well I-- you don't want.

And I said, no, I really--

I really do.

Would you send me some?

And what he sent me was so inventive and so thrilling,

I've never--

it didn't remind me of anyone or anything.

And I wrote him back.

And I said, when you're ready, I will do anything

in my power to help you.

I will put you in touch with my agent.

I will take this by hand to my publisher

when you're ready, because you're not always ready.

Like, sometimes, I remember, my teacher at school

wanted me to send something to his editor at Grove Press.

And I thought, well, gosh, what if they turn it down.

Am I going to be able to handle it?

And he said, I think you can.

And the people at Grove Press, they turned it down,

but it was one of those things when you're young,

and they turn it down.

And their letter is so kind that you

use it to keep you warm for the next several years

until you're a better writer.

But trust people.

I liked that the guy in England trusted

me to be curious about him.

He didn't-- he--

he trusted me to notice him.

He made himself the kind of person that you would notice

and that you would be curious about.

And so he presented himself as that kind of person

and allowed me to essentially do my job, which

was to ask him questions and to read his writing.

But he-- it was completely different.

Like I said, he didn't come to me and say, I'm a writer too,

and I've got this, and read this.

That never works for people.

It never works for people.

What it tells people is that you do have a talent,

but it's for self promotion.

And that's a dime a dozen.

It's really important to be generous.

It's really important to be interested in other people's

writing.

It's really important, if you read something,

if a friend writes a book, you read that book,

and you don't write to your friend.

And you don't say, I really liked it.

You say, I loved it on page 17 when this happened

and on page 23 and to give of your time

and to be really specific and to celebrate.

It's really important to celebrate other people

and to celebrate their accomplishments.

I mean, if you're, like, super, super, super, super talented,

then you can be an asshole, and people

are going to forgive you.

But there are only like three people like that in the world.

So in the meantime, it's really important to be thoughtful

and to be generous and to be happy for other people.