"I was born in the middle of the last century, and that's exactly as long ago as it sounds. In the long arc of my career, I've been an advertising copywriter, singer/songwriter, sitcom and screenplay writer, nonfictionalist and now novelist, which is what I'll be when I die. I've written 10 books on poker, including one on strip poker. I got lucky and wrote a how-to comedy book called The Comic Toolbox, which still sells its butt off, thanks largely, I think, to its attractive pink cover. My debut novel is The California Roll, published yesterday by Shaye Areheart Books. I've also spent 20 years traveling and teaching overseas, which has washed me up on some pretty strange beaches. Lately I've been working in Moscow, running the writing staff of the Russian version of Married… with Children. I have a wife and a dog who love me for, I suspect, very different reasons."
OTHER INFORMATION: The ideal temperature range for a snake mite is 75 to 85 degrees.
On your nightstand now:
The latest issue of Funny Times. Three remote controls, none of which I can operate with any degree of competence. An empty coffee cup I should've brought to the kitchen hours ago. A flashlight (I live in earthquake country). And Columbine by Dave Cullen. Fascinating read. It turns out that the media got the story of that tragedy almost 100% wrong. And not just Fox!
Favorite book when you were a child:
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. It took me away, as intended, to a whole 'nother world. I loved the illustrations by Jules Feiffer, and traced Milo and Tock's route on the map in the back of the book. In Magic Marker. For which my big sister beat me up. In fairness, it was her book.
Your top five authors:
The estimable J.R.R. Tolkien. The visionary Robert Heinlein. The lovely Tom Robbins. The witty David Sedaris. And the shamelessly self-aggrandizing me. Seriously, if you're not one of your own top five authors, you're in the wrong line of work.
Book you've faked reading:
Oh, everything by James Joyce.
Book you're an evangelist for:
Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond. It makes clear that what we think of as moral superiority is really just better tools.
Book you've bought for the cover:
Steal This Book by Abbie Hoffman. Though I didn't exactly buy it.
Book that changed your life:
The Elements of Style by Strunk and White. It made so clear how to make everything so clear.
Favorite line from a book:
The first line of Kafka's Metamorphosis: "As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect." Now that's a hook.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
Watership Down by Richard Adams. This time I won' t keep waiting for the shipwreck.
Proudest literary achievement:
I wrote a theater piece in high school that my drama teacher excoriated as "not a play in any sense of the word I understand." I knew right then that I was onto something.
Coolest thing your mother ever said:
"We're all dying fires. The question is, how will you burn?"
Book you wish your college roommate never read:
The Fountainhead.