Typewriter interview with David Epstein

10 questions for the writer about hobbies, silly rituals, constraint, and more...

Hey y’all,

I liked David Epstein’s #1 New York Times bestseller Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World so much that I picked it for our Read Like an Artist book club back in 2022. (It’s also recommended reading in the back of Don’t Call It Art.) David’s highly-anticipated new book Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better is out today. This typewriter interview was conducted via the magic of the United States Postal Service. (For a plain-text version with links, see the P.S. below.)

Big thanks to David for being the 19th participant in this series of typewriter interviews.

Go out and get his new book Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better and subscribe to his newsletter, Range Widely.

Thanks, as always, to paid subscribers who buy me the time to do all the email coordinating, typing, snail-mailing, scanning, transcribing, and editing that goes into them. If you haven’t yet, consider supporting my work with a paid subscription!

xoxo,

Austin

P.S. Here’s video of a conversation David and I had way back in 2021 about his book, Range:

Here are my mind map prep notes for that interview:

And here is the plain-text version of our typewriter interview with links: