David Sedaris
David Sedaris is an American humor writer born in 1956. He is known mostly for his autobiographical essays, which cover a variety of subjects from his childhood and family to his drug-abusing, odd-job-working, performance-art-dabbling-in years to living abroad in France, Japan and the U.K. with his long-time boyfriend, Hugh.
His first mainstream recognition came in 1992 when NPR aired The Santaland Diaries, his story about working as an elf in a Macy's one Christmastime. Since then he's become one of the most popular humorists writing today, including outside the U.S., and has published several books.
His essay collections are:
- Barrel Fever (1994)
- Naked (1997)
- Holidays on Ice (1997)
- Me Talk Pretty One Day (2000)
- Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim (2004)
- When You Are Engulfed in Flames (2008)
Various other essays, diary entries and fictional pieces have been published separately or performed live or for radio.
More recently[when?] he's begun writing "fables," stories about Funny Animals in mundane human situations, which are collected in Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary (2010). He also edited a 2005 short-story anthology called Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules.
He is a frequent contributor to the Public Radio International show This American Life and to The New Yorker magazine. Amy Sedaris is his sister, and, like the rest of his family, is a character in some of his essays. They've worked together a number of times.