“There’s a lot to be said for keeping it to yourself,” says David Sedaris, the comedic writer who has built a decades-long career on chronicling excerpts of his personal life and inner monologue and reading them aloud to audiences around the world – including at Austin’s Paramount Theatre this Wednesday and Thursday, April 29-30.
His upcoming collection, The Land and Its People, out May 26, tells of the opportunities a career of calculated vulnerability have brought the author: a meeting with the pope, additions to his growing list of “Countries I’ve Been To,” and colorful encounters on book tours along the way.
Seven years into writing, though, and still years away from his debut collection, Sedaris was keeping his pen close to his chest. He shared his work aloud for the first time at 27, in his first formal writing class. It was a revelatory moment, he recalls: “People laughed, and I thought, how did I not know that’s what I wanted to do with my life?”
“I don’t know why it took me so long to do it, but in retrospect, I’m glad,” he muses. That gestational period of writing for no audience gave him space to be green and find his voice – a grace he’s not sure writers coming up in the age of social media immediacy still have. The writer says he’s glad he had the opportunity to hold everything in, just “until the moment is right. I think it’s harder to do now. It was easier back then.”
In the years since, reading his stories aloud and chatting with readers has introduced Sedaris to raunchy religious jokes retold before his visit to the pope and side plot-style adventures that’ve made their way into his stories. Not keeping his drafts to himself has also become a part of his writing process. When he looks back at the many hot takes and wisecracks he’s made over the years, there’s one collection that he feels calling for his revision: Naked. You can hear the cringe in his voice when he talks about it.
“I wrote it before I started going on tour,” the author explains. Every piece in the upcoming collection has already been read aloud nearly 60 times, he estimates. Along the way, the tales are trimmed, much like a stand-up comic’s bits or a songwriter’s set list. In Naked, his second of soon-to-be 14 collections, the stories feel long and clunky to the writer now. “What I see [is] somebody trying too hard, somebody who doesn’t have confidence,” he says.
“It’s hard to grow up in front of people,” Sedaris admits. “I was 38 or 40 when that book came out, so that’s already pretty grown-up – but I got a late start.”
When it comes to the work itself, there’s something else Sedaris advises holding secret: acts of kindness or charity.
“If you want to give somebody your mostaccioli, just keep it to yourself,” he says, groaning with secondhand embarrassment at the way generosity immediately becomes tacky and self-serving on the page. “You’ve got to focus on your bad qualities. I’ve got any number of them: I’m self-centered and I’m selfish and I’m petty and…” he pauses, considering how to word his final flaw. “I’m not cheap. I don’t know that I’m crueler than most people, but I’m not afraid to admit it when I am.”
This article appears in April 24 • 2026.
