If you attend a David Sedaris reading, you're helping him edit

Humorist David Sedaris performs live readings and values audience reactions as a primary editing tool. He listens for coughs to identify parts that need cutting and treats laughter as confirmation that material lands. He also accepts groans as useful feedback. His daily routine includes walking at least ten miles and studying multiple languages through Duolingo alongside travel and writing work. He frames improvement as a deliberate process requiring effort rather than accidental progress. His latest essay collection presents him in varied roles such as brother, traveler, grieving friend, and caretaker. He also describes using AI-generated prompts as a starting point, rewriting them to produce stronger results.

"“I love attention,” he says of going on tour. “I love going on stage and I love people applauding, love people laughing.” But reading out loud isn't just about adoration. Sedaris says he's always listening for reactions from the crowd and tweaking his work in response. “The audience is my first editor,” he says. “When they cough, they tell me that I need to cut whatever it is that I'm reading. Of course, when they laugh, that's fantastic. But I don't mind a groan. A collective groan is fine with me.”"

"Sedaris' daily routine is oriented around getting his steps in (at least 10 miles) and learning German, Japanese, Spanish and French on Duolingo. That's in addition to his rigorous travel and writing regimen. For Sedaris, it's all about growing and improving. “That's the promise: that you can be better, that you can write better, that you understand better, that you [can] speak a language better, that you can be a better person,” he says. “But it's not going to happen by accident. You have to work at it.”"

"“And so that's what puts me at my desk, and that's what gets me out of bed every day.” His latest essay collection, The Land and Its People, casts Sedaris in several roles, including devout brother, itinerant traveler, grieving friend and reluctant caretaker. Interview highlights On whether he'd use AI for writing prompts A friend of mine asked ChatGPT to write something in my voice and she sent it to me."

"“And it was so lame, and then I rewrote it and it was the biggest laugh in the entire book. The audience howls with laughter. I would never have thought to write about this had ChatGPT not written it first. And I thought, well, that's fair. That's not plagiarism or anything. If a machine comes up with it and then I rewrite it, that's perfectly within my rights,”"

Read at www.npr.org