I'm at my best when I'm being genuine and sincere, and reading my material straight up to an audience that wants to listen.
I love Dave Eggers. I hate Dave Eggers. If I could become any other living writer, I would answer faster than anyone else in the room, 'Dave Eggers.'
Now Dave Eggers, if you lived in San Francisco, is not an easy person to be done with. Everyone - and by everyone, I mean every white person with a college education and an interest in books - wants a piece of him. It's not just his amazingly powerful prose; it's also his charitable works.
I had just turned 28 and sold my first book, a travel guide for vegetarians, but I'd tell people about the day job that I didn't care about instead - I placed banner advertisements on the web for a search engine company.
Once the travel guide came out and won an award, once I got an MFA in creative writing, once I sold my next novel, I finally started telling people that I was a writer. I remember how special that year felt.