Typewriter interview with Mark Haddon

Do you see yourself as part of an artistic lineage? Who would you place in your creative family tree?

Hey y’all,

Mark Haddon is a writer and artist best known for his bestselling and critically acclaimed novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. His latest book is Leaving Home, an illustrated memoir “about escaping a place that never felt like home and learning to create somewhere that does.” This typewriter interview was conducted via the magic of overseas mail. (For a plain-text version with links, see the P.S. below.)

What do you do for exercise? Do you detect any mental, spiritual, or creative benefits? To stay sane I run in places with lots of trees and NO PEOPLE [I am] genetically 50% dog acceptable company [animals]

Describe a perfect day where you live. 1. Read 50 pages 2. Write 1,000 words (meta-phorical pen) 3. Run (see

What's the most important piece of furniture you own? Tell us about it. [picture of a flat file and art supplies] Where it all happens I'm standing here right now

This typewriter interview is made possible by the kind support of paid subscribers just like you.

What's your relationship to music? Do you sing or play an instrument? What song do you never get tired of? Play: viola (badly) guitar (ok-ish) [picture of Bach saying

Do you have any hobbies? Do you collect anything? I'm going to call sculpture a hobby if because I have to maker it but I make no money from it.

Do you have any advice for people who want to be more creative? ME: 1. Be a child who is deeply uncomfortable in the world (why else would you want to create another?) 2. Be unemployable in any regular job. YOU: Just go for it.

Big thanks to Mark for being the 23rd participant in this series of typewriter interviews. If you liked this interview, check out his new memoir Leaving Home and follow him on Instagram.

And big thanks to paid subscribers who buy me the time to do all the email coordinating, typing, snail-mailing, scanning, transcribing, and editing that goes into these!

Subscribe now

xoxo,

Austin

P.S. Here is a plain-text version of our interview with links: