Simon Rich
Simon Rich
Simon Richis an American humorist, novelist, and screenwriter. He has published two novels and three collections of humor pieces, several of which appeared in the New Yorker, and his novels and short stories have been translated into over a dozen languages. Rich was one of the youngest writers ever hired on Saturday Night Live and served as a staff writer for Pixar. On January 14, 2015, Man Seeking Woman, a television comedy series from Rich, based on his The Last...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
CountryUnited States of America
I try not to write jokes that are mean. I try my best to write jokes that are pretty universal and jokes that don't attack anyone. I know I often fall short of that and end up taking unfair swipes at people, but I try not to.
I never felt ostracized or made to feel strange by obsessing over The Onion or Calvin and Hobbes. That was considered completely normal.
By the time I got to college I had stopped reading books because I wanted to "be cool" and started reading books simply because I wanted to read them. I discovered heroes like Roth, King, Dahl, Shirley Jackson, Patricia Highsmith, TC Boyle, Douglas Adams, Neil Gaiman, David Sedaris. These people weren't trying to "rebel against the literary establishment." They were trying to write great, high-quality books that were as entertaining and moving as possible.
I've always liked to read about extremely wealthy people, especially when they are crazy (like Howard Hughes or Caligula.) While writing this book I did a lot of fun research on robber barons like Rockefeller and Morgan. But the most helpful stuff came from studying royal families and mad emperors. The best book I read was probably A King's Own Story, which is the memoir of Edward VIII. Also, anything about Ivan the Terrible or Ted Turner.