Alan Jacobs


#
I do almost nothing in clubs now. It demands a constant effort to keep up a schedule of gigs, and I have so many readings and events that I just couldn’t fit anything else in without giving up writing. I tour a one-person show and I deliver comedy monologues, I suppose you would call them, on BBC radio. I would hope the delivery, phrasing, subjects, angles and speed are improving. In a way it’s the same skill set I use for writing, it’s just applied differently and while being stared at by possibly drunk strangers. Every author should do it. You don’t get respect unless you earn it as a comic. Writers tend to get respect whether they’ve earned it or not, which is very unhealthy for us.