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Episode 486: Cartooning is the Children’s Table of Art, says Roz Chast
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"I really love this medium. I think cartooning is an incredible medium. There aren't a lot of rules. You can, if you can, really make it up. You can make it suit you," says Roz Chast a cartoonist and artist whose work routinely appears in The New Yorker.
So today we have Roz Chast. You know Roz Chast, and if you don’t, quite frankly I hope we never meet. She’s a long time cartoonist for The New Yorker whose work is kinda of panicky and bleak and goofy and … heightened … and wicked smaht. She’s the author of Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?, Going into Town, and What I Hate from A to Z and what brought Roz to the podcast is a two 1,000-piece puzzles and a 2026 wall calendar now out by Workman Publishing. Really cool, and you can find those at hachettebookgroup.com.
Cool stuff.
Roz was, of course, a joy to speak with. I watched several interviews with her in preparation for this and I reached out to Dana Jeri Maier for questions because Dana loves Roz, and is a working cartoonist, so it seemed like a good shoulder to tap.
Roz is a true artist. She paints these pysanka eggs, which are dyed eggs with cool paintings on them. She’s into block printing now and she does some rug weaving things, too. I’m sure there’s a formal term for it. She was inducted into the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame in 2019. She won the National Book Critics’ Circle award for Autobiography in 2014, and also was a National Book Award finalist for Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? Her work routinely appears in The New Yorker and in this episode we talk about:
- The ricketyness of a freelance career
- How being an outsider made her a better cartoonist
- How cartooning is like being at the children’s table of art
- Aging parents
- And her experience on The Simpsons.
Lots of rich stuff here that I hope you enjoy. I know I did.
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Show notes: brendanomeara.com
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Transcript
Introduction and Audience Engagement
00:00:01
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Oh, ACNFers, the frontrunner strides through the dog days of summer. Been getting those nice texts and emails. Turn them into online reviews. Those go a long, long way.
Upcoming Events and Submissions
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Got some nice things coming up in Oregon and Idaho, so stay clued in. at creative nonfiction podcast on Instagram or find my newsletters at brendanamara.com.
00:00:27
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Hey, also, we got a call for submissions. Yeah. The audio magazine is back. The Mandalorian and his kind live by a simple code.
00:00:38
Speaker
always punctuated by saying this is the way. What codes do you live by? What codes were you at one time or another told live by? Do you admire codes and singular devotion or do you feel unfairly shackled to a way of life Has code led you to the right path or down the wrong?
00:00:58
Speaker
Essays should be no longer than 2,000 words, which is roughly a 15-minute read. Bear in mind that in the end, these are audio essays. Write accordingly. Email submission with codes in the subject line to creativenonfictionpodcasts at gmail.com.
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Original, previously unpublished work only. Please. ah There's cash on the line, so send me your best fully formed pieces and consider becoming a patron at patron.com slash CNF pod to put money in the coffers that helps keep the lights on here, but also puts money in the pockets of writers.
00:01:33
Speaker
Dig it. And he said, rise you never put all your eggs in one basket.
00:01:46
Speaker
Oh man, is it happening? Again, did we do it? Another podcast?
Interview with Roz Chast
00:01:50
Speaker
Podcasts are dead, man. It's a creative nonfiction podcast, a show where I speak to primarily writers about the art and craft of telling true stories.
00:01:58
Speaker
I'm Brendan O'Meara in The Fletcher. So today we have Roz Chast. You know Roz Chast. And if you don't, quite frankly, I hope we never meet. She's a longtime cartoonist for The New Yorker, whose work is kind of panicky, can be bleak, definitely goofy, and heightened, and wicked smart.
00:02:17
Speaker
She's the author of Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant, Going Into Town, and What I Hate From A to Z, and What Brought Roz to the podcast, our 2,000-piece puzzles and a 2026 law calendar published by Workman Publishing.
00:02:33
Speaker
Really cool. You can find those at hashekbookgroup.com. Really cool stuff. Showing us this episode and more are at brendanamero.com. Hey, there.
00:02:44
Speaker
You can peruse Hot Blog, Tasteful Nudes, and sign up for my two very important newsletters, the flagship Ridge. can see Algorithm in Pitch Club. Got a flood of new subs to Pitch Club, and it's almost time for issue four, this with Cassidy Randall, which will be dropping a day late on 9-2. I like to do first of the month, but it's going to come a day late because of scheduling.
00:03:05
Speaker
Let's keep doing it. Maybe there'll be some book pitches and agent pitches, radio pitches, doc film pitches. I might even do a version of Pitch Club where I feature my book proposals and just working through that. It's going to be a long one, obviously, because the book proposal is long.
00:03:23
Speaker
But yeah, yeah, it'll never cost you a dime. Someone pledged 25 bucks a month for it, which is pretty awesome. Maybe I'll turn on pledges at some point, but not this day.
00:03:34
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All I ask is for your permission because platform is currency. Both are first of the month. No spam. As far as I can tell, you can't beat them. You may also elect to check out patreon.com slash cnfpod to throw some dollar bills into the cnfpod coffers.
00:03:48
Speaker
You can earn some face-to-face time with me, if you dare. Check it out, friend. And also the first ever AMA for paid subscribers is September 4th at 4 p.m. Pacific time. It's Thursday.
00:04:02
Speaker
Thirsty Thursday. So Roz, of course, was a joy to speak with.
Roz's Artistic Journey
00:04:06
Speaker
I watched several interviews with her in preparation for this, and I reached out to Dana Jerry Mayer for questions because Dana loves Roz and is a working cartoonist with work for The New Yorker and her own book, Skip to the Fun Parts. She's episode 480. You can check that out. So it seemed like a good shoulder to tap.
00:04:25
Speaker
Roz is a true artist. She paints these Pesenka eggs, or Pesenki eggs, which are these dyed eggs with cool paintings on them. She's in into block printing now and does some rug weaving things too. I'm sure there's a formal term for it.
00:04:39
Speaker
She was inducted into the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame in 2019. She won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography in 2014. And also was a National Book Award finalist for Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant.
00:04:53
Speaker
Her work routinely appears in The New Yorker. And in this episode, we talk about the rickety-ness of a freelance career, how being an outsider made her a better cartoonist, how cartooning is like being at the children's table for art aging parents, and her experience on The Simpsons.
00:05:10
Speaker
Yeah, they animated her. Lots of rich stuff here that I hope you enjoy. I know I did. Parting shot on why. Yes, we as authors have to sell our shit.
00:05:20
Speaker
But for now, let's queue up the montage. who
00:05:30
Speaker
It's just calm music and you're just running around trying to find a horse. Cocaine is so expensive, I don't do it anymore. I ran out of money. You know, you get rejected and it's like, well, fuck you, who cares? This is going to have to interest somebody somewhere other than me.
00:05:57
Speaker
And then it's like, oh, look, iced coffee. Exactly. it ah It's those little those little things that, ah yeah, got to find joy in those little things because my God, it's bleak out Yes.
00:06:12
Speaker
Look, my straw is green. it's a it's it's ah It's a Starbucks straw, you know, and these, i feel like my depression era parents, it's like,
00:06:24
Speaker
It's made out of pretty sturdy material. I guess I'll use this like 15 or 20 times. Keep it in the drawer. Years of use years of, you know, saving upwards of $4 of, uh, over the ah couple of years.
00:06:43
Speaker
Oh my God. That's great. Like when I was listening to some, ah you know, watching back some of your older, old interviews and you're talking about your folks and sort of that hypochondria that was baked into so much, ah you brought up a lock jaw in one talk. And I remember my mom, she freaked out about lock jaw. If you stepped on a nail and you got tetanus and you get a lock, get locked jaw and is it just rang so true to me.
00:07:08
Speaker
Oh yeah. Where'd you grow up? I grew up in southeastern Massachusetts, so outside of Cape Cod. yeah My mom grew up in Union City, New Jersey, and so kind of like simply kind of lived in a tight quarters, small apartment with her with her parents and ah and her brother, too, um you know just outside New York City. So she kind of had similar kind of apartment up upbringing the that you did.
00:07:32
Speaker
ah Though, you know, she just came from a hardcore Italian ah background. And but yeah she she kind of brought some of that sensibility over to me. ah Also, a tick like burrowing into your ear and then blowing up in the ear like that was a thing, too.
00:07:49
Speaker
I like that it's not just that it's in your ear, but that like it somehow blows up in your ear. That's that's kind of Baroque and and and very fanciful. I don't I don't think my parents knew that much about like ticks because they were such Brooklynites that, you know, they've heard about ticks. But to them, where when we first moved You know, we had our second kid and we moved out of New York. and We moved out to suburban Connecticut.
00:08:20
Speaker
And to them, this was the country. And this is 1990. And my father said so how many channels do you get it up there?
00:08:31
Speaker
he just, you know, he thought that somehow we're not, we're in... suburbia we're not out in some rural area i mean this is it's really funny yeah yeah and every like every little lump or a change in color and her skin so like everything was cancer oh of course like my god it's like you pass that down a generation it's like no no wonder why every time i get a little little ache like oh my god it must be shoulder cancer or something oh yeah
00:09:04
Speaker
I have had 24-hour cancer more times than i can tell you. You know, and everything is a symptom of something that is very, very dire.
00:09:16
Speaker
ah So, yeah, that's... that Lockjaw gangrene. um i think I was the only six-year-old in Brooklyn who knew what a metatarsal was or the popliteal area. My mother used to talk about like the back of the knee, like that weird, if you've ever looked at it it is really quite peculiar looking. We're probably not meant to look at it like directly, but but she, I remember it's it was the popliteal area, which is another one of these
00:09:48
Speaker
florid, wonderful kind of words that doesn't you know come up every day. it sounds like a bird. Yeah, popliteal and varicosities and oh God, you know, I think she probably wanted to be a doctor.
00:10:05
Speaker
But, you know, she didn't wanda wind up being that. You know, and watching some ah back of some interviews as well, like um I love how you, you know, you saw yourself as something of an outsider.
00:10:17
Speaker
And how how did feeling like an outsider you think maybe ah made you a good artist and a cartoonist that you would eventually sort of grow into?
The Art of Cartooning
00:10:27
Speaker
Um, I, I hate to say that the two are connected, but I have to say that most people I know who are cartoonists had and have a hard time just kind of that kind of go along and get along and and like, well, I took my car to the car wash and then, you know, and I love dinner.
00:10:49
Speaker
And, you know, I don't know whether, you know, catastrophist, is that too strong word? and but Well, you know, i I grew, as you said earlier, I did, I grew up in a small apartment. I had two elderly, relatively elderly parents, no siblings. And I really had no idea of you know, what people talked about, how to talk to people, um like people my own age.
00:11:18
Speaker
I didn't know what they talked about. It was like such a mystery to me. when And I remember this from back in like, you know, nursery school, going to nursery school for the first time, just that sense of like, I have no idea what's going on.
00:11:32
Speaker
No idea at all. And, you know, this just sort of persisted, but ah also at the same time, I knew I loved to draw. So that was, it was something to do.
00:11:43
Speaker
You know, if like I couldn't play with somebody, then I could draw. So, yeah. and I love how you you combine. And I heard you talk about, you know, combining the writing and the drawing. like It's this great marriage of two things you enjoy doing. And, you know you know, for you, are they very much intertwined or does maybe like one come more naturally than the other? and you you know, they feed into each other in that way.
00:12:08
Speaker
um They're very, very intertwined. You might say they're conjoined. um ah it but But I do notice that sometimes one has more, like I'm more compelled to draw than I am to write, or sometimes a more compelled to write than I am to draw.
00:12:31
Speaker
um Like right now I am going through ah very visual process. phase for some reason, I don't know. I mean, I'm just really, I've gotten really into block print, block printing lately, like linno linoleum blocks. And it's, I just love it.
00:12:50
Speaker
Love, love, love. And I love looking at, you know, imagery more than reading. So, you know, yeah I go through phases of one or the other. And I also, and I love looking at graphic novels, which, um and cartoons,
00:13:03
Speaker
Which to me are like a perfect marriage of not only the visual and the verbal, but also hopefully, you know, humor. That's at least that's what I'm going for.
00:13:16
Speaker
i mean, not all graphic novels are, you know, funny, but the ones I liked the best are often, often funny. Yeah, well and so much of of what you do is often they single panel or stuff broken up, but then you've written longer you know graphic memoirs and and stuff of that nature too. you know When you look to do more long-form cartooning, if you want to use that term, you know how do you ah you know break it down so that that whole process doesn't feel so overwhelming?
00:13:46
Speaker
yeah Well... I have noticed now that I've done um three books that each one is different.
00:13:57
Speaker
Each one has a ah it's, it's not like, you know, I've learned how to, how to break down, you you know, how to do this. And now I can go to the second book and it's easier. It's like starting. uh,
00:14:11
Speaker
ah the book I did with my parents, a lot of that was sourced from letters that I'd written to people about it And actually when I was putting, when I was putting it together, i it was the first one graphic, you know, long form thing I had done and I had no idea how to do it.
00:14:33
Speaker
And i was kind of freaking out about it. And, uh, I was talking to my shrink and he made this incredible suggestion, which was how about chapters?
00:14:46
Speaker
And it was like, I had completely forgotten about chapters, you know, or I had just not, never even, i somehow I had this like panic in my head about like how it had to be one, like, like I would sit down to do a one page or two page cartoon, except that it would be like 160 page cartoon or whatever it was.
00:15:07
Speaker
And, I had forgotten about the chapter aspect, which was so helpful because, you know, you could kind of complete a chapter. And then if you, if you decided, oh I think I want, you could move like the whole block, you know, around a little bit, but then the second book I did was sort of different. And then the third book I did was different from that. And now the book I'm working on is different from that. So I'm sure that some people have a way of doing it and, and i wish I did, but I don't, I have to just kind of feel my way through it. And, um and there's a lot of ah false starts. A lot of stuff just goes in the garbage and, you know, eventually, hopefully it it hangs together and you have a book.
00:15:52
Speaker
That's, that's fingers crossed. um I'm holding up two crossed fingers. Yes. Okay. Well, that, you know, for the a lot of things ending up in the garbage, that is something that a lot of people have a hard time doing, be it writing or drawing or whatever it might be.
00:16:10
Speaker
But it's in that getting through the bad stuff, you eventually get the good stuff. And. ah you know how How have you over the over the years of your career you know cultivated a sense that yeah maybe something ah mediocre that gets thrown out is it's not wasted work because it's really just something on the way to hopefully getting something yeah that's very good measured against your taste?
00:16:32
Speaker
um It's a good question. I think you have to like look at the big picture and say is there anything that I would rather do than this? you know And there really isn't, I cannot think, certainly not in the sort of job or career sense.
00:16:53
Speaker
And even like I would rather do it this way, even with the awfulness of like, you know spending days on something and then now you know and then having to throw it out than it.
00:17:11
Speaker
not do So yeah, like, I guess that's what it comes down to. Like, I would rather do this than not do it. And when you were you know coming out of RISD as a you know painting, you know studying painting and and doing a lot of a lot of that, you know cartooning was never you know far from your heart.
00:17:30
Speaker
And it was always something he kind of did, but it was like lowbrow for them. And you know how did you kind of like stick to your guns with that, knowing that that was something that you know you truly loved to do? I feel like I was really...
00:17:44
Speaker
lucky because part of me was so, it was just very depressing and i was kind of angry and it was all I really wanted to do. i mean, that's what I mean by like, I would rather do this than not do it.
00:18:00
Speaker
yeah Um, maybe that doesn't sound like a very, um, strong ah reason to do something, but, um, there was a certain kind of indifference to what I was doing at RISD. Maybe it was partly my fault because I just didn't get that engaged with my teachers.
00:18:21
Speaker
And they certainly didn't attempt to get engaged with me that I could kind of, if I like check these boxes, um I could do the paintings, I could do what I needed to do, but by my senior year, I was um i was drawing cartoons, ah that but not showing them to anybody.
00:18:44
Speaker
um And then when I got out of school, the painting was just like, you know, I really don't want to do that. This is really, you know, what I want to do.
Roz's Experience at The New Yorker
00:18:54
Speaker
Yeah, and so that's around the time and around, let's say, was about 1977 is when you pitched the batch to the New Yorker?
00:19:02
Speaker
graduated to 77, yeah. Take us to that moment. I've heard you talk about it. i would love to hear you articulate it again of just you know that moment of how you became introduced to the New Yorker you know art director at the time and ah you know bring brought him a a batch of cartoons that you're hopeful maybe maybe you could sell.
00:19:21
Speaker
ah Well, it was... One of those you know absolute shockaroos for me because my parents subscribed to The New Yorker. um And of course, I was familiar with their cartoons, especially Charles Adams.
00:19:36
Speaker
But I never in a million years saw my stuff as you know for them. my My dream, this was I graduated in 77 and i started taking my portfolio around. And I guess this was, you know,
00:19:51
Speaker
April of 78 was when I sold my first cartoon to the New Yorker but my dream at the time was ah to become a cartoonist to the village voice because they ah they published Jules Pfeiffer and Mark Allen Stamity and ah Stan Mack and people whose work was very idiosyncratic and narrative, not single panels with a gag line and a talent type underneath. And that's mostly what I saw in The New Yorker.
00:20:18
Speaker
And I'd never been to a cocktail party in Connecticut. I'd never, I don't know if I'd ever been to Connecticut. Well, no, I must've passed through it on the train to get to Rhode Island, you know, where i went to school, but I did not see myself as a New Yorker cartoonist at all, but I thought, well, you know, I'll give it a try. And I didn't know what I was doing. I was 23. called up.
00:20:37
Speaker
When is your drop off day? When can I take my portfolio? And, you know, you leave it with somebody and then you go to the next week to pick it up. So I put... like 60 cartoons in it. I didn't know, like, is this too many? Is this too few? What do people do? I have no idea. I don't i didn't know any New York cartoonists, so I didn't have anybody to ask. So I put them all in this envelope and below and um I dropped them off. And then I went back the next week to pick them up and I looked for the rejection note. And there was not a rejection note. There was a note from Lee Lorenz, who was the um art
00:21:12
Speaker
editor at the time. I mean, he did, a I, he was not the cartoon editor. He's the art editor. He did everything. He did the covers. He did the spots. He did the little illustrate. not I mean, I don't mean he drew them. I mean, he edited he, he, you know, and the covers.
00:21:26
Speaker
ah And it was a note from him, which ah said, please see me, Lee. And I didn't know who Lee was. I didn't know anybody. And they buzzed me in and I went,
00:21:38
Speaker
and I saw Lorenz and I was absolutely terrified. It was also Lee had an office and then outside of his office was like a sort of outer area, like a little lounge with a ratty furniture in it. And it was all these old men.
00:21:55
Speaker
They were like, they none of them were under 30. um I think that the youngest was maybe 35 or something like that. But to 23, That's just like some indeterminate age of oldness and all men. And i just thought, uh, if I just kind of like, uh, just completely, you know, when you feel you were really shy.
00:22:21
Speaker
and you just cannot stand even existence itself. yeah You just do and you know pull into yourself. And um I went in to see Lee and he pulled a cartoon out and he said, we're going to buy this one.
00:22:33
Speaker
And it was Little Things, which was to me, the most, one of the most personal of the batch, because it was just, it was the kind of thing that like I draw to make myself laugh, you know, which I don't think anybody else would understand, you know, was like,
00:22:47
Speaker
you know, you make up a name. i mean, I still do this. I make up like lists of imaginary names, you know, or like film titles or just funny words or just something, you know?
00:23:00
Speaker
um And so they, and he said to start coming back every week, every Wednesday and bring in a group of cartoons. And that's what I did, you know? And i I did go in in person for the longest time. And then when I started having,
00:23:17
Speaker
When I had my kids, you know then it got complicated. And now, of course, it's all done over you know it's ah email. You email in your cartoons. But I just emailed ah group of cartoons in last night. So I've been doing this now for a long time. It's ridiculous.
00:23:35
Speaker
Yeah, I've got the ah a little screenshot of the Little Things cartoon you know pulled up in front of me too. and yeah What is it you think, like when when he selected this one, were you so out of the batch of you know several dozen photos? You're like, oh wow, like well that's the one you chose. like with what did What did that mean that that he picked that one in particular?
00:23:56
Speaker
i The whole thing was like ah extremely surreal. And i didn't really understand why he picked that one, because as I said, it was very, it was more obscure, it was more personal, it was ah more private in a way.
00:24:15
Speaker
But what mattered to me was that he said to start coming in, you know, on a regular basis. And I had a sense that, well, this is this is definitely interesting.
00:24:26
Speaker
Cause you know, when you're 23, your adult life is so, it's such a big question mark and formless and you know, you don't know what you're going to be doing the next week.
00:24:39
Speaker
So this was definitely interesting. Yeah. With ah like, how long did it take you to get another one accepted? I think it was probably a couple of months, maybe a month, something like that. It was definitely not the next week.
00:24:54
Speaker
yeah But I know when when I started being published in the magazine, there were a lot of of the older cartoonists who were very upset. Luckily, you know, I was 23 and I didn't really like hang around with them. So Lee shielded me from it to some extent. But then he told me later, he said that one of them was so upset that he asked Lee if he owed my family money. Yeah.
00:25:26
Speaker
But yeah, and I still hear, I mean, I had lunch the other day with a cartoonist who's now 94. And he told me, he said, oh my God, there were some guys who just hated you. you know And there were a few that were like, well, let's just see, it's new. It's, you know.
00:25:46
Speaker
But there were a lot of them that I think felt really, because I wasn't doing what, I liked what they did. i i liked that style of cartoon, but it wasn't what I wanted to do, you know?
00:25:59
Speaker
But some of them, I think, are they just, it just really bothered them. Yeah. At what point were you able to bring your, and more of your sensibility and what you actually did want to do at The New Yorker?
00:26:15
Speaker
I think that I was so lucky that Lee was really, and and he told me, I remember he said, Sean really likes your work. And i didn't know who mr shaw I didn't know who Sean was. I thought it was the first name.
00:26:30
Speaker
I was lucky because ah Mr. Sean and Lee Lorenz liked my work and they didn't try to make me be a person I wasn't. you know They didn't say, well, we like your work, but could you shape it more for the New Yorker? you know they They never did that. The New Yorker has never said anything like that to me.
00:26:54
Speaker
So I feel like they've been extremely supportive of me trying to figure out what what this is and how to say it best, you know? And that's, I will always be sort of, I know this sounds so corny, but I will always be shocked and incredibly grateful that I've been given a chance to do that, you know, to figure out what it is I wanna say and how to do it best.
Freelancing as a Cartoonist
00:27:26
Speaker
You've talked about ah a Linda Barry quote about the rickety-ness of you know ah freelancing, but certainly cartooning. And 23 and then going you know maybe a month or even a couple months without between one cartoon and the next with the New Yorker at least, yeah, that's talk about the rickety-ness there.
00:27:44
Speaker
It's, um you know, how have you really, yeah I don't know, yeah built a scaffolding in your life so that things maybe, that you could endure the rickety-ness over the decades? Because, yeah, like you like you've said, yeah it's so uncertain for freelancers like to this current day.
00:28:00
Speaker
Yes. Oh, absolutely. Well, I think about something that, ah well, things that some of the older cartoonists said to me. One was Sam Gross's some time in the mid eighty s said to me, and did you know Sam Gross? Do you know who he is? Wonderful. dont I don't.
00:28:19
Speaker
He did. He did the cartoon. this is probably his most famous cartoon of the two people eating in a French restaurant and a little frog comes out on the dolly without legs. The frog doesn't have any legs. It's on a little, rolls himself out on a dolly.
00:28:36
Speaker
it's It's the greatest. But anyway, he said to me, and he was from New York. He he used to be an accountant and he became a cartoonist and he had this really, and he said, Roz, you never put all your eggs in one basket.
00:28:49
Speaker
And he's referring you know to the New Yorker, like you just don't you have to have other things, you know, and nobody I know. i mean, even back when I started, almost everybody did something else. I mean people who taught there was one cartoonist, actually, Leo Cullum, who flew, ah ah i think, for American Airlines. He was such a pilot.
00:29:12
Speaker
um But you have for you have to do. other things. I mean, I do books and I give talks and I, uh, for a long time, I did illustrations.
00:29:23
Speaker
I do other projects. Um, I have a gallery. Uh, so I have an outlet for, you know, block prints or my embroideries or the pisanki eggs or hooked rugs or this other kind of stuff that I do.
00:29:38
Speaker
So yeah, you have to have other things besides the New Yorker. Um, and And now more more than ever, because ah you know as we all know, print,
00:29:51
Speaker
media is you know certainly not what it was you know even 10 years ago. And there are not the markets for cartoons that there were once.
00:30:03
Speaker
you know i mean, i ah the person that 94-year-old cartoonist I had lunch with was telling me that when he was starting out, there were 55 magazines that used cartoons.
00:30:16
Speaker
And A lot of them were in New York and the guys would take their portfolio around. They would start at the New Yorker because they paid the best. And then they would go to Saturday Review, McCall's, Ladies Home Journal, all these magazines, and they'd work their way down to Gent. They'd work work their way to the the men's magazines.
00:30:39
Speaker
That world is is long gone. It was gone by the time I started. I mean, there was at when there was ah the New Yorker and then there was the National Lampoon I sold to them and, and ah oh oh gosh, oh, Mother Jones used cartoons, Village Voice used cartoons, but you know, not, it's different now.
00:31:00
Speaker
ah even when I talk to writers too, there's the, there, there's the work that you tweet about and then the work you don't tweet about. And often the, the stuff that gets broadcast, say on social media or elsewhere, it it can create a false veneer that that's the thing that's like paying all the bills, but that's just the stuff you're most proud of. Meanwhile, there's like mercenary work over here.
00:31:23
Speaker
And so like hearing you say that, not putting all your eggs in one basket, is just like, yeah, that, that makes, that makes a lot of sense. And it, it it helps to hear someone like you with your experience to be like, yeah, there's other things that, you know, help keep the lights on. So then you can mean, you know, your creative taste into the things that fulfill you the most, which is, you know, New Yorker cartoons and stuff of that ilk.
00:31:45
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. You have to do a lot of different things to sort of patch it together. And You know, be prepared for, a I mean, what do they say? Like, hope for the best and expect the worst. I mean, that's, yeah you know, it's, ah most people I know who do this, everybody I know who is an illustrator or cartoonist, they do it because they really love to do it.
00:32:10
Speaker
You know, it's one one of those kind of things. It's, you know. When you're submitting a batch of cartoons every every week and, you know, doing that every single week for for years, ah what's the sense of panic that sets in? or You're like, oh, my God, like I've got, you know, I got five to ten to set in, like deadlines tomorrow. Like, what do I do?
00:32:31
Speaker
Oh, the whole thing is just one panic after another. I mean, you get kind of, wouldn't say accustomed to it, but what it comes down to again, is that I would rather do it than not do it. And that is really the,
00:32:43
Speaker
the whole metric of this, but yeah, it sucks. I mean, you you submit, you know, six, eight, 10 cartoons every week and often they don't buy any.
00:32:55
Speaker
I mean, you know, you can go weeks, months and not sell a cartoon. And then you feel like crap. You feel like, what am I doing? This is so stupid. Maybe my work sucked. Maybe it's true that my, that worst voice in my head,
00:33:10
Speaker
the one that like just natters on about how much you suck, um, maybe that voice is right. and You know, you can start really making yourself nuts. Um, and yes, the deadline aspect that I like to some extent, I like deadlines because I think having, um,
00:33:29
Speaker
Well, I think about something that in Susan Morrison's wonderful book about Lorne Michaels, I still remember one quote. He said, we don't go on the air because we're ready. We go on the air because it's 1130. And submit my cartoons not because...
00:33:48
Speaker
and so i submit my cartoons not because Well, now i have completed like that. It's, it's, this is the deadline. This is, I have to, you know, the alternative is to just not submit.
00:34:02
Speaker
How have you adapted to say new editors who come through over the decades and, you know, just being like, Oh, maybe, you know Emma likes a style like this, or do you just stay true to your taste? i don't really, i stay pretty,
00:34:22
Speaker
true to my taste because, you know, i may be a terrible judge of my work of what's funny or not, but it's the only voice that I have that I feel like I can listen to.
00:34:37
Speaker
um and then of course she's the editor, so she gets to pick, but I'm not really good at adapting. i I, I am amazed sometimes when I see people who can draw it in all different styles and, you know, adapt in this kind of thing.
00:34:53
Speaker
i' am not I'm not good at that. I guess it's kind of like being a character actor or something. Right. Yeah. I heard an interview where you know you're just in some counsel that you've offered is like if it if what feels right for you you know isn't right for somebody or or what feels right for you might not feel right for somebody else. Yeah. Yeah.
00:35:14
Speaker
And i think that's really true of like finding your own voice and style. But like for like, so when a lot of people I suspect come to use, let's say for advice, like, you know, how do you ah phrase advice for for people who might be aspiring or just like frustrated cartoonists who are kind of in that in that phase of trying to get their footing?
00:35:36
Speaker
ah You know, it's funny. i i feel like um it must be so hard. right now for young people who want to do this because there are just so few markets.
00:35:52
Speaker
But I think that if it's something you really want to do, you just have to kind of keep doing it. I mean, I know that sounds so lame and, you know, just keep doing but that's the only way that you figure out what it is you want to say.
00:36:06
Speaker
i mean, one other thing about the way the New Yorker has it set up with the weekly batch and stuff like that is that, yeah, on one hand, it's kind of like, oh my God, it's like decades and decades of, but on the other hand, it's how you figure out it's how, you know, it's only by continuously drawing continuously, ah keeping that channel open of putting your thoughts on paper or, you know,
00:36:33
Speaker
on paper in quotes, because, you know, sometimes I use my iPad. I'm not completely illiterate. Um, uh, it's only by doing that all the time that you figure out what your strengths are what your weaknesses are. Do you want to, you know, change that? Do you want to like the parts that you're weak at? Do you want to like just junk those and do a workaround? do you want to get better at those?
00:36:56
Speaker
It's, it's so much completely up to the person that giving advice in some ways is, um, i'm not I'm not really good at that. I would say that you have to really listen to yourself. Listen, what is it that you think? Because i what i what's right for me is not going to be right not necessarily going to be right for you.
00:37:18
Speaker
What what it it really is, is you have to put in the time and you have to work that's kind of, you know, and ah maybe, um you know, you also hate to do everything else.
Creative Advice and Personal Reflections
00:37:31
Speaker
So that helps. I mean, i just really... I hate to drive. i hate to exercise. I have no interest in gardening.
00:37:42
Speaker
i have birds. I don't have, it a you know, it might this is, I don't have ah that many other things that I like to do besides this. The thing with advice is it almost always defaults to you know your own lived experience. And for the most part, it's so unreplicable you know for for everybody, like a previous generation, like the certain avenues that made like that you came up with.
00:38:07
Speaker
are are the footprints aren't there so like how does someone coming up now break in and it's like there are certain timeless things that you can lean on and I suspect you know yeah I've heard you say you know trying to find meaning in your work I think that is important too like if you can find some meaning and empathy in the storytelling element that can translate from maybe medium to medium and hopefully maybe with a lucky break and enough rigor and perseverance then maybe you can crack in somewhere Yeah, yeah. um I mean, also my experience was was kind of unusual, I think. I mean, Lee was just, he really changed my life.
00:38:45
Speaker
But that's, i as you said, I don't know if those kind of things exist that much anymore. and i mean, and and one of the problems with putting your work on the internet, I know people who do Substack.
00:38:59
Speaker
That's one way that people make money doing this is they have a sub stack. But certainly a young person would know more about that than I would. you know They probably know a lot, tons more about how to make it in this market than I could ever tell them.
00:39:18
Speaker
Well, and aside from the fact that you know back in the day when you submitted batches and there was like physical, something going there in person or submitting you know paper things, now it's electronic. yeah How have your batches evolved over the years?
00:39:31
Speaker
I think when I was younger, well, i didn't, ah they were almost always about the city um or stuff like that, because that's where the only place I had lived. And, you know, then when I had kids, there were a lot more jokes about that. And I guess, you know, Bob Mankoff, who was the cartoon editor before Emma Allen, he said that some cartoonists, um they work within the cartoon universe.
00:40:00
Speaker
And, you know, they're subject matter is, you know, door jokes and and conference rooms and, I don't know, ah the end of the world guys and whatever genre jokes are popular at the time.
00:40:18
Speaker
And there's very little of their like day-to-day life in it. And then other people, their work is more autobiographical. I think I have a little, I i do both a little bit, but why did I bring this up?
00:40:31
Speaker
Oh, how have my batches evolved? um So to me, the main of evolving is just that they reflect more, you know, that they have reflected my subject my subject matter changes.
00:40:46
Speaker
lot, you know, I mean, when my kids were little, I was did a lot of child related cartoons. Now my kids are older and I don't do so many. Although I have done a couple about, I have grandchildren now. So I've done a done a couple of those, but yeah.
00:41:05
Speaker
Yeah, the did you find that you know, as maybe sometimes some of your cartoons trended more personal that you got more of a reaction to those?
00:41:16
Speaker
Yeah, yes, but not always. i think the the book I did about my parents got, ah that was extremely personal. um And that got a lot of reaction.
00:41:27
Speaker
i do think that that is a topic that um people it's sort of shoved to the side. People don't want to talk about it a lot.
00:41:38
Speaker
I think for a lot of reasons. First of all, because nobody wants to talk about like death. It's so gross and depressing. um And the other thing is that ah like so many things, the work of taking care of elderly people is is generally women.
00:41:56
Speaker
You know, therefore it's kind of like sort of put off to the side. It's like when when I hear, i don't know, now I'm off on a different tangent. when i When I hear particularly male scientists talk about extending the human lifespan, I want to just like take a frying pan and like crack them over the head.
00:42:15
Speaker
It's like, are you just, am I allowed to swear by the way? Oh yes. Oh, okay. Are you just fucking insane? Have you ever been with extremely old people? Do you know what this is about?
00:42:30
Speaker
Do you know that it's about like being in a place and surrounded by like underpaid women who are going to be taking care of your stupid old body?
00:42:41
Speaker
I mean, It's just, it's it's the work of people who really don't understand what old age is Not saying that I completely do because I'm not quite there yet.
00:42:55
Speaker
I have an aunt who's going to be 106 if she makes it on September 11th. And it looks like she is. So, and my parents died at 95 and 97. So, and a lot of my relatives, they were quite up there. She's the only one who's gotten 105, almost 106, but it's, it's not great, you know, and she's in pretty good health and she has, I'd say 85% of her marble marbles, but it's not good.
00:43:23
Speaker
It's not good. So and don't know. So yeah, that book got a lot of um that book got a lot of attention, I guess. And I i emailed um yeah Dana Jerry Mayer, who was a you know um does some cartoons for The New Yorker, has a wonderful book on creativity about called Skip to the Fun Parts. It's an awesome book. She's so funny.
00:43:45
Speaker
I was just like, hey, I'm going to talk to her. She just ah admires you so much.
Creating Covers for The New Yorker
00:43:49
Speaker
And I and knew that. I'm like, hey, you know what would you like me to ask Roz? you know just This might help. She sent me a couple questions, and I they think they're really good. And she... um she She brought up how you like you're one of the few cartoonists who's made like the ah transition to make to draw covers as well.
00:44:05
Speaker
So you know just for starters, for you, what makes a good New Yorker cover? If only I were more articulate about stuff like this. Well, you see, I'm drawing, and then I get a feeling that it would look kind of nice on the cover.
00:44:21
Speaker
Yeah. ah Yeah, I guess generally, but not always. It's nice to have like a ah single image thing um more than like a million little panels, but I have done ah couple of covers that were sort of panelish.
00:44:41
Speaker
your Your latest one from a couple months ago, maybe was kind of like a tic-tac-toe thing. Yes. Yes. It was Hollywood squares that, so yeah. So that, i ah so yeah um to that clearly doesn't apply. Yeah,
00:44:58
Speaker
so it's something that I think um this is just such circular, how do you decide whether it's new? Because it's something that looks like it could be on a cover.
00:45:09
Speaker
So yeah, sorry, I just, I don't know. i mean, it's it's it's a feeling. It's an instinct. Well, yeah, and then making that crossover is is pretty is pretty rare. So how did you end up, you know what was maybe your first you know your first cover and how did you make that crossover? Oh, the first cover I did,
00:45:28
Speaker
was not something I pitched as a cover. It was part of my it was 1986 and I turned in and i turned in my regular batch of cartoons. And it was a scientist, you know, cartoon scientist, white coat, beard, glasses, you know, like the sort of a shorthand for this is a scientist.
00:45:49
Speaker
And he has a chart and a pointer and it's a chart of the evolution of ice cream. And at the top of the chart is a ball of vanilla ice cream. And then it branches off into like different sort of more um branches of that original ball of vanilla ice cream.
00:46:06
Speaker
And, you know, and in the popsicles and cones and the little dish with a wooden spoon and all that ah banana split, ah that's more at the bottom of the chart when it breaks off into sects or whatever.
00:46:19
Speaker
And Lee said, we Lee pulled it out and he said ah we'd like, he and Sean, I guess, we'd like you to try this as a cover. um So that was my first one.
00:46:29
Speaker
And that, I guess, I felt like I had permission to then, if I had something that I thought would be a cover, to pitch it as a cover. So yeah, I don't know. I've never really, when people say about like creative work, like, you know, did it take a lot of courage to do this and do that?
00:46:50
Speaker
I don't know. Maybe because I just found like, childhood and adolescence so upsetting and terrible that um and even like the years at RISD like you know you get rejected and it's like well fuck you who cares you know um it's not like I mean, courage to me is like people who ah like firefighters or something. I mean, you could die.
00:47:20
Speaker
ah Even like being a surgeon, it's like you're operating. You're like, how do you do that? How do you take like an X-Acto knife or whatever they use and like cut into a person? It's like, that's, how do you like open up somebody's brain?
00:47:34
Speaker
And if something goes wrong with a drawing, I just throw it in the garbage. So I don't know. i don't know. i'm I'm very excited often to just try something new and experiment and, you know, see if it works. And if I really like it, I'll submit it And that's kind of it Well, yeah. with excitement and experiment, you know, experimentation, you know, what are what are you seeing ah in the the cartooning landscape? and You know, trends you you like or just, ah you know, the kind of work being done out there that's you know putting a smile on your face?
00:48:14
Speaker
ah There's so, so, so many people. There are tons of my fellow New Yorker cartoonists whose work I love. I'm collaborating actually with friend Jason Katzenstein.
00:48:28
Speaker
He's terrific. I've got his book, Everything's Emergency. I've got that right over there. love that book. It's so good. It's so good. um I love Emily Flake and Lars Kenseth and of course Ed Steed and Liana Fink. And there's tons of people, but then there's the graphic novel world of Walter Scott.
00:48:49
Speaker
And Gabrielle Bell and Keela Robertson. I know I'm leaving out like billions of people. ah I really love this medium.
00:49:00
Speaker
i think cartooning is an incredible medium. There aren't a lot of rules. you can if You can really make it up. you can you can You can make it suit you, not, you know, i mean, my mother used to talk about the procrustian bed, you know, and that's where like the person cuts off their legs to fit the bed.
00:49:23
Speaker
And that's actually, you know, not such a great idea. you You want the bed to fit the person. You don't want to cut off your legs to fit into the bed. So, and and cartooning, maybe because there is so little money in it. It is such a not,
00:49:41
Speaker
ah it's not a grownup ah job. i mean, it doesn't feel, I often feel like we are so much sitting at the children's table. I mean, I'm probably like poets feel it even more, you know,
00:49:56
Speaker
modern dance choreographer. I mean, these are the kind of e i jobs that it's, ah it's competitive in a way, but really there's no, there's really,
00:50:12
Speaker
um you do it because you really like want to do it. you know I don't know how I started off on this one. Sorry. Well, it's such a of ah fun medium to digest, and it's kind of liberating in a way because there is some flexibility. I think the I've heard the Simpsons creators call like their their world um like rubber band reality where it's like they tether it to something real, but they can kind of bend it because it's animated. and and And so they can, yeah, they can stretch things in a way. And I think that's true with graphic, well, with cartooning and and graphic novels, even graphic nonfiction is that you can kind of, you can bend it just enough to to suit your sensibility and to suit the storytelling where, you know, but where it's not strict nonfiction, but it's still expressive in that way.
00:50:58
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I love that rubber band reality. That's great. I'm going to be thinking about that, but yeah, I mean, when you're putting together a project and you're putting together a book, you know, you're putting together a narrative and it has to sort of have, you know, a shape to it. And, youre you know, if you're working on it, you're the only one who knows how to do that. And maybe if you have a good editor, they can help you with it.
00:51:24
Speaker
Yeah.
Cartooning and Pop Culture
00:51:26
Speaker
Well, speaking of The Simpsons, Dana also said, maybe I'm just fangirling here, but you've got to ask Roz about The Simpsons and being on The Simpsons. Oh, my God. Just tell me about that experience.
00:51:35
Speaker
That was like highlight of life because i love, love, love The Simpsons and always watched it. I remember when it was just the interstitial stuff on Tracy Ullman.
00:51:49
Speaker
wow. Yeah. And my kids, when they were growing up, we watched it every night, because I think it was on Channel 5 at like 7 o'clock, they ran it.
00:52:01
Speaker
And when The Simpsons at the beginning of the you know the credits, the beginning of the show, when all The Simpsons would be running to the couch, me and the my two kids, we would all run to the couch and we had to be there then. It was like, so, and I was amazed because there were kids, you know, occasionally I would be asked to speak to kids at at the school and, you know, you're cartoonist, come speak to the class.
00:52:27
Speaker
So ah I would ask like, Who in the room loves cartoons? And me, me, me. And what cartoons do you like? Does anybody watch The Simpsons?
00:52:39
Speaker
And there would be inevitably one or two kids whose parents didn't let them watch The Simpsons. And this would just floor me. you know Because to me, it was such a misreading of what this show was.
00:52:54
Speaker
Oh, God. It just used to just kill me because I just thought it was so great and so many wonderful, very moving things. And I mean, you did you watch The Simpsons?
00:53:05
Speaker
I did. And ah yeah, i i I was nine years old and when it debuted as a TV show. And um Yeah, I remember like those those first 10 years of The Simpsons were extremely formative for me. That was my middle school and high school years.
00:53:21
Speaker
And to me, I still think it's the best. um Maybe everyone who comes of age in a certain window of The Simpsons are like, no, that's the best window. But those first few years, my God, the writing was so good. the the The push and pull of the...
00:53:35
Speaker
heartfeltness but also the jokes and the gags and how it graduated from bart being kind of the central figure ah to to kind of homer's gaffes and everything i don't know it was it was perfect at that time oh absolutely absolutely my father did insist on watching it with me because some of the humor was could be a bit crude and maybe a bit mature but i think it's just because he desperately wanted to watch it too and found it hilarious Yeah, I never found them that South Park.
00:54:03
Speaker
I used to watch with my son. And that was something that I felt better watching it with him. But we would laugh and laugh and laugh. I mean, because it was funny. ah But The Simpsons had a a lot of heart.
00:54:17
Speaker
balanced with all these jokes. It wasn't like moron stuff. like I mean, I remember even as a kid or a slightly older kid, like a teenager, you know you'd watch some of these like shows that were pitched that had so-called heart and it would just be like, this is so crappy. This is so corny. I cannot stand it.
00:54:36
Speaker
But it was one Simpsons episode where I remember it ended where I think that bar it was Bart and Principal Skinner. They were the two main characters. And I think Bart had misbehaved in some way, and there was some kind of rapprochement between the two of them.
00:54:52
Speaker
But then as Prince, and then it's like this heartfelt moment. And then of course they have a twist where like, as Principal Skinner is walking away, Bart Simpson's tax a piece of paper that says,
00:55:05
Speaker
kick me to the back of him. Ha ha ha. But then the scene after that is as Bart is walking away, you see that Principal Skinner has taped something on the back of Bart, which says, teach me. and yeah it was just like, I mean, tears, you know, and I thought this is why this show is great, you know, because it has both, you know, both things.
00:55:32
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And there's a speaking of about the heartfelt thing, too. And I used to listen to the DVD commentary a lot, too, especially when I was living alone. I was a sports writer and coming home late at night and like listening to the DVD commentary of Simpsons episodes made it feel like I was watching it with like a group of friends.
00:55:49
Speaker
Yeah. in a And in this one episode is when ah Homer found his mother or his mother came back into the picture. And at the very end, he's sitting on the hood of his car looking at a starlit sky as his mother sped off out of his life.
00:56:02
Speaker
And it's, like, extremely heartfelt and very morose, kind of sad and morose. ah But um the commentary, they were saying, like, they really had to fight to have not have, like, ah house ads basically for the next show. Like, stay tuned for Drexel's class coming up at 8.30.
00:56:19
Speaker
Yeah. ah Because they really wanted that moment to hang there and that they were successful, successfully able to do it. But and he just goes goes to that point of like, here's this really funny, something over the top show. But then, yeah, it really tugs at your heart.
00:56:34
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I was like practically like in tears, even thinking about this, I find it so moving. Yeah. one hundred percent 100%. Well, and Rozzy, you've got these really cool puzzles and coming out and in a new calendar. And ah I think it's so great. like My wife and I love doing puzzles. So I like, I can see us getting these ah when they come out. So just what is it, what does it meant to have these puzzles coming out from Workman publishing from, from your work?
00:57:03
Speaker
Oh, I just thought I was so happy that they asked me to to do this. um And we often do them in the summer, not when we're home, ah if we go away or something like that. And, ah you know, we just put out the puzzle and it's a very fun activity, especially if other people are over and Maybe you've had a glass of wine or a gummy or whatever. And cause you can also talk, you know, while you're doing it, it's not like watching a movie where you have to, um you know, you're doing this and it's like, Oh, I found an edge. I found the edge, you know, and I don't know. It's a, it's a very, it's a very fun activity.
00:57:43
Speaker
yeah How did you arrive at the the two particular ones? It's kind of like the map of a particular train that it just goes all over the place. And then the other one, the infinity infinity portrait. you know What was it about those that suggested, oh yeah, these are those the these will make for a good thousand piece puzzles?
00:57:58
Speaker
Well, actually, Workman chose them. um I believe they had given me ah you know I have to think back, they gave me some choices of which ones, but these two i liked.
00:58:12
Speaker
um and I think they'll be they would be fun to do. you know There's not too many areas of like, well, this is just the sky. It's half the puzzle is just sky. Those are the worst. They're very colorful. There's lots of little parts. There's words and words are always a good clue. and Well, that's amazing. That's
Closing Recommendations and Marketing Emphasis
00:58:35
Speaker
so cool.
00:58:35
Speaker
Well, Roz, as I bring these conversations out for a landing, I always just love asking the guests for a recommendation of some kind for the listeners. and that's just anything you're excited about that you want to share with the listeners. So I'd ed extend that to you as we bring our conversation down for a landing.
00:58:49
Speaker
Well, ah my husband and I just watched the movie Barry Lyndon for the first time ah just a night or two ago. Actually, watched it over two nights because it's like four hours, three and a half hours long or something. It's Stanley Kubrick.
00:59:03
Speaker
who is just so great, of course, and loved the movie. Not what I expected. um I thought it was going to be a slow sort of costume drama, but it's very funny and and not at all ah dull or stately or anything like that. Yes, it does take place in like 1770s, I think.
00:59:30
Speaker
um But it's terrific. So highly recommend it. Oh, fantastic. Well, Roz, what a joy to just to have a conversation with you about your work and I just thank you so much for carving out the time and thanks for all the work you do. It's you always know when you're coming on Ross Chass, a cartoon, and it's always a joy to just be entertained by your works. Just thanks for all you do.
00:59:53
Speaker
Thank you, Brendan. This was great. Nice to talk to you.
01:00:02
Speaker
I'm going to back.
01:00:06
Speaker
ro's chestst was here can you believe that pretty great stuff be sure you're checking out show notes at printingmerath ah com hey or all the show on instagram at creative nonfiction podcasts Sign up for the newsletters.
01:00:19
Speaker
They're only once a month. Rage Against the Algorithm, the flagship, and then Pitch Club at welcome to pitchclub.substack.com, which is turning out to be pretty popular and gaining more traction all the time.
01:00:32
Speaker
Get on board. So I was on this panel for Hippocamp a couple weekends ago, and I was the featured reader.
01:00:44
Speaker
And I was under the impression that I was going to be part of the panel discussion that involved primarily debut authors. ah there was some miscommunication with the moderator. So like they emailed the group to asking each one of us to provide talking points to contribute to the conversation.
01:01:01
Speaker
So I was like, okay, cool. Put a lot of time in this. But I was never asked anything of worth. that like At one point I was asked about photos and how the title of my book came to be as time was running out. Only after did I realize that was apparently only there to read.
01:01:16
Speaker
Again, it was communication error, so whatever. No big deal. I bring this up because someone on the panel said their job wasn't to sell their book. It was to write it. And I think I may have put my Zoom hand up at this, and but I was ignored.
01:01:31
Speaker
And this is all well and good. And maybe in a perfect world, your only job is to write and let other people sell. But make no fucking mistake. Your number one job is to write the book, but jobs two through 99 are to sell the fucking thing.
01:01:45
Speaker
It is your job to take that this thing that you planted, nurtured, fertilized, pruned, and harvested and bring it to market to celebrate it. Because if you don't, I'm here to tell you that nobody will.
01:01:58
Speaker
If you think your publisher is coming to save the day, they are not. Oh, you have a big five deal so you're all set? 100% false. You will get a fancy press release on publisher stationery, but if you expect them to bend over backwards and sell you, nothing's going to happen.
01:02:15
Speaker
Now, if you're okay just writing books that get little to no attention and that's your jam, then fine. Definitely don't sell. like that's Get your kicks that way. Cool. But let's not kid ourselves.
01:02:26
Speaker
Every single person who writes books cares about selling the most possible copies to the most amount of people. If you say otherwise, you are lying.
01:02:39
Speaker
So when I hear someone in a debut author speaking to aspiring authors saying it's not their job to sell, ah consider that malpractice. You know, there is a lot of unpaid work around the work we have to do.
01:02:53
Speaker
I'm not saying you have to live on social media, and I'm telling you right now, please do not live on social media. That's a way of seeming like you're working ah But real work is writing columns and essays and newsletters and appearing on podcast after podcast and celebrating other people's work of leaving five-star reviews on Amazon and Goodreads for your peers, whether you love their book or not.
01:03:14
Speaker
Or like copping out and saying it's not your job to sell the book is also kind of a way of passing the blame if it doesn't do as well as you'd hoped. You can point to your PR team or your publisher or your favorite bookstore and say they didn't do their job.
01:03:26
Speaker
I did mine. They didn't hold up their end of the deal. a way of not taking accountability for the success or failure of your book. If the frontrunner doesn't sell, and it isn't, that's my fault.
01:03:39
Speaker
and a culture bro Jesus Christ. Lachlan and Kevin there. ah Anyway, Kevin seems to be getting better for those who know what was happening a couple weeks ago.
01:03:57
Speaker
but she's still very my governor on her engine still taking her out very gingerly uh for bathroom breaks but we're starting to take her for five minute walks outside flat ground anyway in a perfect world we get to publish our books and let someone else broadcast it but that but that but that hasn't been the case for what 15 years maybe more maybe ever So if someone tries to tell you that you as the writer, that it's not your job to sell your book, smile and nod at some of the worst advice you just heard.
01:04:35
Speaker
So stay wild, CNFers. And if you can't do interview, see ya.