Until then, I would only sit down and write a story if one occurred to me, and then I started to wake up every single day and write for a few hours whether or not I had anything worthwhile to say. That’s when I started writing every single day, whether or not I had an idea. But I think it sort of shifted around when I was 17. As early as kindergarten, I plagiarized Roald Dahl stories that I would try to pass off as my own. * * * How old were you when you started actively, seriously writing? And in “Distractions,” a writer believes the whole world is out to get him, and they really are. In “Gifted,” a mother insists that her son-born as a monster, with horns and a tail-is exceptional. In “Animals,” a hamster narrates his wretched existence as a class pet at an elementary school. Many of the stories in his new collection, Spoiled Brats are built on an unusual premise, or told from a surprising angle. His stories are crystalline, eccentric, and universally hilarious. Rich’s level of productivity, impressive as it is, takes a backseat to the quality of his humor writing. He also spent four years writing for Saturday Night Live (he was the youngest writer SNL ever hired) and about two years at Pixar, and is now at work on a film and a television series. Less than a decade later, the humorist has written four short story collections and two comic novels. 2014 | 17 minutes (4,290 words)īy the time Simon Rich graduated from Harvard, where he served as president of the Harvard Lampoon, he had a two-book deal from Random House.

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