Don't Quit Your Day Job: Acclaimed Authors and the Day Jobs They Quit
(By Sonny Brewer)
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P.J. O’Rourke said, “Creative writing teachers should be purged until every last instructor who has uttered the words ‘Write what you know’ is confined to a labor camp…The blind guy with the funny little harp who composed The Iliad, how much combat do you think he saw?”
Like O’Rourke, William Faulkner had his own take on the Other Commandment for writers, the one that goes, “Thou shalt not quit thy day job.” Faulkner, who won the 1949 Nobel Prize for Literature, had, twenty-five years before, worked at the post office in his hometown of Oxford, Mississippi.
Mister Faulkner was known to say, “One of the saddest things is that the only thing a man can do for eight hours, is work. You can’t eat eight hours a day, nor drink for eight hours a day, nor make love for eight hours.”
He must have been determined to give something else (writing, we may assume, perhaps a glass of whisky on the side) a whirl when he tendered his resignation to the postmaster. “I reckon I’ll be at the beck and call of folks with money all my life,” he said, “but thank God I won’t ever again have to be at the beck and call of every son of a bitch who’s got two cents to buy a stamp."
"The authors in this book have tried their hands at some of the same jobs you have held, or still keep. They’ve worked on the railroad, busted rocks with a sledgehammer, fought fires, wiped tables, soldiered and carpentered and spied, delivered pizzas, lacquered boat paddles, counted heads for the church, sold underwear, and delivered the mail. They’ve driven garbage trucks.
“And like William Faulkner before them they have quit those day jobs. And like Faulkner they write. They tell good tales.
If you wonder what work preceded their efforts to produce a great pile of books, if you would like to know how they made the transition to, as William Gay said, “clocking in at the culture factory,” then this is the book you’ve been waiting for.…”
SONNY BREWER, Editor and former... (well there doesn't seem to be much Sonny hasn't done...) Singer in a Rock Band.
“I just wonder why no one has done this before. The truth is that this book will allow writers to do the one thing we tend to strive for most: build a bridge between ourselves and our readers. It will connect us, fiercely, with the people who love to read, and those who dream about writing as they work at their own jobs…” RICK BRAGG, bestselling author and former sledgehammer operator
"I’ve been asked a thousand times... It will be a perfect chance to answer the question for my readers..." JOHN GRISHAM, bestselling author and former underwear salesman.
HOWARD BAHR, a native of Meridian, Mississippi, is the author of The Black Flower and three other novels.
RICK BRAGG is the author of the bestselling All Over but the Shoutin’, and Ava’s Man, among other books. He lives in Alabama with his family.
LARRY BROWN was a lifelong resident of Oxford, Mississippi. He authored Facing the Music and Big Bad Love as well as an autobiography, On Fire. He died in 2004.
SUZANNE HUDSON is the author of a collection of short stories and two novels. She lives near Fairhope, Alabama.
JOHN GRISHAM is the author of a bunch of legal thrillers, two books about football, a collection of long stories, and a kids’ book.
TIM GAUTREAUX’s latest novel is The Missing; He has published two other novels.
PAT CONROY is the author of nine books, four of which were made into award-winning motion pictures.
WILLIAM GAY is the author of three novels; he lives in Hohenwald, Tennessee.
CLAY RISEN is a staff editor at the New York Times op-ed page and an author”
