Sloane Crosley

I lovelovelove Sloane Crosley! She is a writer and humorist (a la David Sedaris) who captures the same based-in-reality absurdist-style essays that I find fun to read.

In addition to being an entertaining writer, from what I’ve read/heard about her, it seems that Ms. Crosley is a neat, approachable lady in real life. Even after publishing two (extremely well-received) collections of essays, she continues to work full time as a publicist for Vintage Books, a Random House imprint. In a Gawker interview I read with her when How Did You Get This Number? first came out, she said:

I like my job. It's a really good one and I'm lucky to work with the people I work with. Also, I would go crazy without two jobs of some kind. I know this because when one side of my life cools down for a moment, I feel a temporary relief followed by a low-grade frustration. Sort of like when competitive swimmers shave their legs before a meet and then suddenly they're going at warp speed. Huh. I think I just compared either writing books or being a publicist to leg hair.

Also, in that same article, it said that she got her start when she got locked out of her apartment and wrote up the wacky tale to send to her friends via email—an email so fun to read it was eventually published in the Village Voice. (‘Hey!’ I think to myself, ‘I write wacky emails to friends every day. It must just be a matter of time for me!’)

But the article that reminded me to write about her here is one that I read in Psychology Today (hard copy, sorry!) about her lack of spatial awareness in which she said, “You don’t want people to pity you and you don’t want to complain in public because of what kind of real problem is this?”…Complaining “is just begging the universe to respond to give you something really to cry about.” Ha! So true. Which is basically what Crosley’s writing is all about, finding the inherent truth and ridiculousness in everyday life. I love it, and you will too; Check her out!

Thanks to Paige for my hard copies of both How Did You Get This Number? and I Was Told There'd Be Cake.