Author Spotlight: Exploring the Wit and Humor of David Sedaris
- Chona
- Aug 3
- 3 min read
David Sedaris cannot not keep a diary. His writings, born from countless diary entries and keen observation even of the most mundane of moments, pave the way for his fame and celebratory status. People praise him for the discipline, but for him, the practice is more than just a mechanical habit. “Keeping a diary is not a discipline. It's a compulsion,” he said during an interview with Jeffrey Brown at PBS NewsHour.
Photo from Wiki Commons
Born in New York but grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina, David Raymond Sedaris, is the second child of six, and the brother of actress and an equal humorist, Amy Sedaris. His childhood and teenage years were as bright as his writings. He attended Sanderson High School in Raleigh and became active in plays, all while starting to struggle with his sexuality. His passion for writing and his fascination for diary started when he dropped out of school after briefly attending Western Carolina University and Kent State University. At 25, he realized he wanted to develop his writing craft, so he pursued the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Sedaris didn’t waste time after graduating in 1987. It was this time when he started to read aloud his diaries at a club while being a part-time writing teacher on the side. In one fateful occasion, a radio personality from Chicago Public Radio, Ira Glass, heard him perform and read. Glass then invited him to appear in his weekly local program, The Wild Room, where he read entries from his diaries.
This encounter caused the world and the larger stages to swing open wide for Sedaris. He later debuted on National Public Radio (NPR), where he read a radio essay titled “SantaLand Diaries,” hilariously recalling his experiences as a department store elf at Macy’s during Christmas. The essay was such a success that he recorded more diary entries for NPR. He also signed a book deal with Little, Brown and Company and, in 1993, announced that he published his first essay collection. Barrel Fever, a collection of both essays and stories, was published in 1994. Glass started a new hour-long show on Chicago Public Radio called This American Life, where Sedaris was a frequent contributor. Sedaris started writing for Esquire and the New Yorker in the late ’90s.
His second collection, Naked in 1997, won the Randy Shilts Award. The book contains compositions about his upbringing in Raleigh, his experiences with drugs and alcohol, and his self-discoveries as a young adult.
In 2000, he published his Me Talk Pretty One Day. The collection is divided into two parts, with the first one including his childhood and life in New York. The second part is a recollection of his life in France with his partner Hugh Hamrick and his frustrations learning French. The book received rave reviews and won the 2001 Thurber Prize for American Humor.
Three years later in 2004, he published Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, which reached number one on the New York Times Best Sellers List for Nonfiction. The audiobook also received a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album and a Grammy Nomination for Best Comedy Album.
Sedaris continued to publish books well into the 2010s: When You Are Engulfed in Flames (2007), Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary (2010), Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls(2013), and Calypso (2018).
Other than his independent work, he also collaborated with his sister Amy under their team name “The Talent Family.” Together, they have written plays produced at La Mama, Lincoln Center, and the Drama Department. Their plays include Stump the Host, Stitches, One Woman Shoe (recipient of an Obie Award), Incident at Cobbler’s Knob, and The Book of Liz.
Today, Sedaris continues to go on tour, bringing houses down with his wit, effortless humor, and insightful stories.
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