When you write about a room, what are the details that make their presence known? A white bowl with gold fish painted on the inside, a gray radiator, New Yorkers from the year one. Nesting tables missing one nest. Do you see them or make them up? To they enhance the story, magnify the themes or characters. A water bottle, a yoga mat, a dictionary stand, the Game of Life. Do you choose the details or do they choose you. That’s a trick question. You choose. Striped curtains of gold and red that fall to the floor and then some.

Is god in the details.

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Write what you know. Do what you like. Try to be a good person. Hold the door open for the person behind you, even if he isn’t there. Make crust. Hem your pants. Floss. Kick ass. Write thank you notes. Drink eight glasses a day. Hands at ten and two. What you were, who you are,  the perfect child.  Can you write what you don’t  know? Can you know yourself through writing?

What do you know?

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When I was in junior high school everyone loved this history teacher, let’s call him Mr. Mustache. He was hip, he was funny, he perched himself on the edge of a desk and spoke “frankly.” He was the most popular teacher in the school. I hated him, thought he was a phony, his lines predictable and folksy. Then everyone fell in love with the movie, E.T. Not for me. So fucking saccharine.
You can disagree with me. My whole life, I’ve had this perverse streak of hating everything everyone loves. With the exception of Broadway, the Thanksgiving Parade, and a nice bowl of primo weed.

What do you hate that everyone loves?

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It’s the end of year and that can only mean one thing: best of lists. The New York Times released its top ten books of the year and one hundred best books. I can’t believe my fucking Bridge Ladies didn’t make it. Or was it published last year.? Who can fucking remember. I never wanted to be on a best books list anyway. Give me an Oscar or give me nothing. And you shall have it in abundance!

What’s on your top worst list besides Dunkirk, Starbucks low fat bacon sandwich and Larry David’s return especially the episode with Salmon Rushdie,

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Two first-time authors in the last few months asked my advice about what to sign in people’s books at their readings. For The Forest for the Trees, I wrote: Keep Writing! For Food and Loathing, I wrote: Love and Doughnuts. And for The Bridge Ladies, I’d sometimes write: Don’t forget to pull trump. Or I’d write: Learn Bridge.  Or: Are You My Mother. Or: Get My Daughter Drugs! Or: Fuck me dead.

What do you sign?

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What would it be like to paint or sit in an orchestra pit? Or Bruno Mars moving like silk. What would it be like to audition, stare into the face of a director and casting agent in a darkened theater. You are a monologue, a pair of tap shoes, the horse hair on Cezanne’s brush. You discovered the filament, the fiber, the fringe on a red velvet curtain, burnished and dusty, ropes of gold. You have no idea what your body beholds. You can’t remember your name. You cannot sculpt, or sing, or make anyone laugh.

What do you wish?

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Today: client got nominated for a grammy, talked to a promising young writer, helped set up social media for book event, saw first pass at a marketing idea for Christmas, finished writing an editorial letter to a client, made three lunch dates for the new year and one drinks date to celebrate a book bestselling to close out the year, reviewed a contract, begged a writer to cut 30,000 words from his first novel, took my mother to tour an assisted living facility, bought a few gifts for the holidays, made a chicken.

How about you?

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You all know how I feel about holidays and family. I mean it’s material. Only then you get older and all the “toxic dynamics” are no longer interesting. It’s like the turkey; you can only stand so much. And then you’re underneath the crawl space with a composition notebook and blanket for the mildewed floor. “Loyalty to the family is tyranny to the self.” A friend told me that a long time ago and I tattooed it on my heart.

What does your tattoo say?

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When people discover that I work in publishing, they always ask what I’m reading, and the answer is pretty much always manuscripts. When aspiring writers ask me about going into publishing, I warn them about this occupational hazard. It has always seemed to me that if you wanted to be a great writer, you had to read the greatest writers. Some years back, I was reading the sixth or seventh draft of a book that was never going to find its pulse and I thought: I’m going to go to my grave having read this manuscript multiple times and having never read Crime and Punishment. That night, I went home and started Crime and Punishment. One of the all time great reading experiences of my life.

What do you want to read before you die?

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So nice to hear from so many of you. Sorry to read about losses, too.

I always hated people who said, Thank got it’s Friday. Or hump day. Or Monday is the new Thursday. Or who talked around the “water cooler,” or talked about the weather as if observing rain were original or interesting. Unless it was like two nights ago. Do you feel me? When I was in Miami for the book fair, a young woman got up at the Q&A and read a poem. I would have never done that in my entire life, which has made me re-evaluate my entire life.

Ballsy or obnoxious?

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