Typewriter interview with Tim Kreider

10 questions about writing, not writing, great writers who are funny, and more

Apr 14, 2026

∙ Paid

Hey y’all,

Tim Kreider is a writer, cartoonist, and author of the essay collections We Learn Nothing and I Wrote This Book Because I Love You. I love his work and I have to restrain myself from linking to The Loaf, with Tim Kreider every time he posts a new essay there. 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.)

What did you do as a kid that made hours pass like minutes? Same things I do now -- writing and drawing. Plus of course watching 800,000 hours of crap '70s TV. Later, Atari. Also sometimes throwing dirt at my face. (See recent essay)

Do you see yourself as part of a creative lineage? Who do you place in your artistic family tree? As a cartoonist, I saw myself in the tradition of surrealists/absurdists: B. Kliban, Roland Topor, Ralph Steadman, Ronald Searle, Michael Leunig. As a writer, I don't think in terms of genre. I don't read many other essayists, 'cause I can't bear competition, except for like Montaigne, E.B. White, Dave Wallace. I'm maybe in a tradition of people trying to

puzzle out what's going on and what it's all about before they die, from the Stoics to Vonnegut and Saunders. Confused Humanists. Or wiseasses like Nietzsche or Mencken. These are just writers I admire, you understand; I'm not claiming to be commensurate to them.

Describe a perfect day where you live. Well yesterday my girlfriend and I did a comparative bagel taste test for breakfast I put special decals on the windows to keep birds from bonking themselves dead against the glass, we read aloud from The Mirror and the Light, by Hilary Mantel, had

What's your relationship to music? Do you sing or play an instrument? What song lit you up when you were 14? I use music as a mood-altering drug, I listen to it purely for emotive qualities. I don't think it engages the left side of my brain at all; I don't have much feel for structure and I've gone decades without paying attention to song lyrics. I taught myself to play piano as a kid

(should've taken lessons but hated school) and still play by ear, and at pretty much the same level of skill. At 14 I still wasn't listening to popular music. In 1981, I would've been listening to movie soundtracks: Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Clash of the Titans, etc. Just getting into classical w/ Tchaikovsky's 6th as gateway drug.

What do you do for exercise? Do you detect any emotional, spiritual, or creative benefits? Once when some friends of mine were sitting in a ditch drinking beers some guys challenged them to a soccer game. My friend Alfie explained to them: "Physical activity is for losers.” Exercise for exercise's sake is too boring to contemplate. I do like doing some things that accidentally

involve exercise, like biking and archery. I grudgingly concede that this makes me feel better. Not enough to go to a fucking gym though. PS. Yesterday my girlfriend suggested we start going to a gym.

Do you have any hobbies? Do you collect anything? I think what most people think of as hobbies I've made my vocations. I don't collect, but whenever I have to buy something I get obsessed looking for exactly the thing I want — e.g. right now I need to get a coat re-lined so I'm looking at hundreds of satins w/ art deco patterns, preferably with International Klein Blue.

I "smoke" a cigarette pencil when I write. Do you have any silly rituals? What's the most embarrassing thing you do when you write? Not write, mostly. I'm constantly forgetting that writing — not typing, but the real writing, that happens in your head — takes place anywhere — walking, driving, in the shower — except sitting in front of your computer.

John Waters says he has "youth spies" that keep him up-to-date on culture. Do you have any youth spies? Well, I teach, so my students glance discreetly at each other in a way that means they will mock me later politely behind my back if I say something passe. (Apparently you don't say "memes" anymore.) Plus I look at memes.

If you were going to create an anthology of GREAT WRITERS WHO WERE/ARE ALSO VERY FUNNY who (or what) would go in it? Barry Hannah Hunter S. Thompson Molly Ivins David Foster Wallace Denis Johnson J.D. Salinger Thomas Pynchon Cormac McCarthy* Robert Stone* Mark Twain Leonora Carrington (The Rat Story)

James Thurber Laurence Sterne (THIS FUCKIN GUY) Douglas Adams ** Lorrie Moore Sloane Crowley Madeline Cash (my former student! Very very proud) Richard Russo I find I can't love any writer who's not funny, so almost all my favorite authors are also humorists. * but only once every 100 pages ** best at age 13

You were a political cartoonist for year and switched to writing essays. Do you still draw? Mmmmmm Sometimes.

Sadly, not much. I draw specific projects — like I'm working on a map of my girlfriend's property — but not regularly. Which is too bad, since drawing is like 1,000 times funner than writing.

Big thanks to Tim for being the 18th participant in this series of typewriter interviews.

Subscribe to The Loaf, with Tim Kreider and go out and read his books We Learn Nothing and I Wrote This Book Because I Love You.

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 Tim and I had back in 2022:

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

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