{"id":2148,"date":"2016-07-04T10:24:45","date_gmt":"2016-07-04T10:24:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/?p=2148"},"modified":"2017-06-30T18:37:17","modified_gmt":"2017-06-30T18:37:17","slug":"david-sedaris-keeping-a-diary-helps-somehow-tame-the-world-around-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/david-sedaris-keeping-a-diary-helps-somehow-tame-the-world-around-me\/","title":{"rendered":"David Sedaris: \u201cKeeping a diary helps somehow tame the world around me\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

David Sedaris came to Romania a second time this June, just in time for the launch of the Romanian translation of his international bestseller Me Talk Pretty One Day. <\/em>
\nDuring his three-day trip, under the patronage of The Power of Storytelling and Editura Publica – David\u2019s Romanian publisher – the author attended two events and met his readers, signed their books, talked to journalists and read exce<\/em>rpts from his published and unpublished work in front of a large audience.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

David also spoke to DoR (Dec\u00e2t o Revist\u0103) <\/a>magazine about the upcoming launch of his new book (a collection of diary entries dating as far back as 1977), why he likes keeping a diary and what informs his writing: fucked up human behaviour, racial relations in America and disturbing, disgusting or generally funny events. <\/em><\/p>\n

Here are a few highlights from the interview:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2022\u201cKeeping a diary helps me somehow tame the world around me, or put it into perspective. Or helps deal with it in some way. It\u2019s not just recording it, although sometimes I\u2019ll read in an old diary and it\u2019s just a description of someone who sat across the aisle in a bus. But it can bring me right back to that moment, the same way a photograph can\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022\u201cI prefer writing in my diary when it feels like nothing happened. \u2018Cause you feel you\u2019re making something out of nothing. My whole diary for today might be about that couple that sat next to us at lunch, who then paid separately. Or what seemed to be going on between the two waitresses who were sisters, or the waiter who had a tattoo that read \u2018Made in Romania\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022\u201cA good thing about a diary is it tells you what you\u2019re interested in. Like you say you\u2019re writing about politics so that if someone finds your diary, they\u2019ll think you\u2019re that person. But that falls away because no one ever reads your diary, and you realise it\u2019s private, it\u2019s just for you. And you realise what you care about. I don\u2019t care about feelings, I really don\u2019t care about feelings… I care about fucked up human behaviour. The more fucked up, the better\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022\u201cPeople come to me at book events and say \u2018I wanna write too\u2019 and I tell them \u2018Well, you needed to decide that a long time ago and, secondly, you can\u2019t write without reading\u2019 (…) Because I think you need to learn how to seduce a reader, how to invite a reader. I think you can naturally seduce a listener, but to convince a reader to continue reading is something you have to learn. And I don\u2019t mean going to school. If you care about it, you learn it reading other people\u2019s books\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022\u201cI seemed to be interested in race. When you\u2019re an American or you go to America, and you go through Customs, it\u2019s like they give you a cape and it\u2019s soaked in water and they put it on your back and say \u2018here you go\u2019 – and that\u2019s race relations in America. And you carry it, it doesn\u2019t matter what colour you are. Especially growing up in the South, I was curious about that. And I can see the diary-book coming out and people saying I\u2019m a racist\u201d
\n\u2022\u201cWhen I was growing up, in North Carolina, there was a Ku Klux Klan billboard on the side of the street. We would see it driving to the beach. And that sign stayed up until 1982. Which, for someone born in the 1990 – that\u2019s ancient history. But in 1982, I was 25 years old. That\u2019s a big deal, I was an adult and that was still up. Looking over my diary, I realise it interests me how white and Black and brown people relate to each other in America\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022\u201cI have a lot of encounters with people. The more\u00a0self-reliant you are, the more stories you\u2019re going to get. I never drove a car, I take public transportation. I\u2019ve never been in a car alone. Sometimes I read from my diary at events and people in the audience are like \u2018That didn\u2019t happen to you!\u2019 and I go \u2018Because that didn\u2019t happen to you?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022\u201cIf you\u2019re choosing things from 40 years of diaries, what you\u2019re doing is carving out a person. You can carve out any kind of person you like – generous, loving, deceitful… I\u2019m in charge of how this comes out. I don\u2019t know how good of a portrait it will ultimately be, because it\u2019s hard to see yourself\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022\u201cI\u2019m not a very smart person. I have other qualities, but I\u2019m not terribly smart and I used to try to hide it, but then you just reveal yourself as a complete idiot. As you get older, you kind of say \u2018OK\u2019. You don\u2019t have to take back qualities in yourself. I can say about myself that I\u2019m gossip and I\u2019m glutton. There are obviously a lot of things you can always work on, but you can\u2019t really get smarter. (…) I\u2019m not that dumb either\u201d<\/p>\n

The sixth edition of The Power of Storytelling takes place October 14-15 in Bucharest and already gathered an amazing line-up of world renowned authors, illustrators, musicians and marketers. You can find out more about them here\u00a0<\/a>and register here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Sedaris came to Romania a second time this June, just in time for the launch of the Romanian translation of his international bestseller Me Talk Pretty One Day. During his three-day trip, under the patronage of The Power of Storytelling and Editura Publica – David\u2019s Romanian publisher – the author attended two events and … Continue reading David Sedaris: \u201cKeeping a diary helps somehow tame the world around me\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2177,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[24],"tags":[60,112],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2148"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2148"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2901,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2148\/revisions\/2901"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepowerofstorytelling.org\/edition-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}