Typewriter interview with Sarah Manguso

10 questions for the writer about music, hobbies, and more

May 27, 2025

∙ Paid

Hey y’all,

Sarah Manguso is the author of ten books, including the novel Liars and the aphoristic essay 300 Arguments. Earlier this month I wrote a whole newsletter about her latest book, Questions Without Answers. This interview was conducted via the United States Postal Service. (For a plain-text version with links, see the P.S. below.)

Describe a perfect day in your neighborhood. I live next to an elementary school and sometimes by afternoon the yard is full of big foam blocks and playground balls. A perfect day would be 72 and sunny, and the kindergarteners throw lots of toys over the wall. I take a long walk with one of my favorite people, and then the night is quiet, with a clear moon. I don't have to cook anything. I eat a whole bag of gummy raspberries and then I receive a big check and then the ERA passes and all my enemies die.

What's your relationship to music? Do you sing or play an instrument? Is there a song you can't get enough of? I love music but I don't like background music. I have a hard time following a conversation if there's any music on that contains lyrics. I can't listen to music and drive at the same time unless I know exactly where I'm going or know the music by heart. I can't really drive and talk at the same time, either. I seem to have a small intake valve, but whatever gets inside goes in deeply and is processed thoroughly. I was a serious but depressed pianist in my teens and then I was a serious and euphoric choral singer for a while and then my life changed and now I sing along to my favorite recordings with vocal scores and am somewhat musically fulfilled. My favorite song is "Gates of Paradise" by RF Shannon.

Do you have any hobbies? Do you collect anything? I don't like clutter and I don't collect things, but I keep a diary, which is a kind of accumulation I can deal with. And I like to bake, to gradually master recipes. I don't like being too ambitious. For a while I was entertaining my kid by drawing a comic called "Gas Cat" about a cat whose flatulence both creates and solves problems.

I "smoke" a cigarette pencil when I'm writing. Do you have any silly rituals when you're working? It isn't exactly a ritual, but when I'm feeling overwhelmed I narrate what I'm doing as if my life is an instructional video. Sometimes I narrate what my cat is doing. The other day we made an instructional video about how to use catnip. Single shot, one take, terrible framing. I have no aptitude even to try doing this well.

What do you think attracts you so much to short literary forms? My apparent autism, which I didn't know about until I was almost 50 years old, is likely what endears short forms to me. My brain isn't good at screening out extraneous information, so it takes me longer than normal to process what I sense, and I finish processing things really only after I write about them.

What do you do for exercise? Do you detect any emotional, spiritual, or creative benefits? Any exercise that doesn't require thought is a good way to solve writing problems. I walk fast laps in the park. I used to swim laps until I hurt my toe and then I did yoga until I hurt my back and now I do physical therapy. So far I've learned how to get up from a chair and how to pick an object up from the floor. Apparently I didn't know how to walk right, either. Why didn't anyone tell me?

Do you see yourself as part of a creative lineage? Who would you place in your creative family tree? This is a tricky question that I always dodge because I don't think I can name my own influences any more than I can name the unconscious forces that drive me to do one thing instead of another. But I can say that the historical figures I feel most allied or aligned with are the silent choir of unknown and anonymous women who bequeathed us their creativity without attaching their names to it.

John Waters says he has "youth spies" that keep him up-to-date on culture. Do you have any youth spies? For many years my students did that work for me, and I haven't taught undergraduates for a while, but as I research my next novel I've been meeting a lot of such field agents in the flesh and am learning not just slang but new mores and modes of relational behavior. I think I'll have more to say about all this in a couple of years.

I read a good deal of 300 ARGUMENTS in a park in San Francisco, and I found my copy of ONGOINGNESS in Antigua, Guatemala. Do you have any favorite books that are linked with the places you read them? I'm glad to know that ONGOINGNESS made its way to Guatemala. I'm not incredibly well attuned to where I am geographically but I do remember landmarks of romantic history: I remember who introduced Bernhard to me, who introduced Machado de Assis, and so on. "Has the wall always been that color?" I once asked someone about my own building after I'd lived there for years. Yes, it had.

Do you have any advice for people who want to write or be more creative? Don't make anything you feel obligated to make. Just make the things you want to make. If it feels like homework, stop unless you enjoy homework.

Many thanks to Sarah for being the 7th participant in this series of typewriter interviews.

Please check out her books and tell me in the comments who you think I should interview next:

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