Author David Sedaris can be found on campus every year, but not as a student.
Sedaris, who has been giving readings at UCLA for more than 10 years, will return to Royce Hall Tuesday for his next annual appearance in “An Evening with David Sedaris.” The event will mix a reading of Sedaris’ published personal essays and short stories – from best-sellers such as “Barrel Fever” and “Me Talk Pretty One Day” – with more current material and anecdotes.
Best known for his mainly autobiographical style, Sedaris’ dry wit centers around an ironic tone, directed both toward himself and the world around him. Sedaris has been a frequent contributor on National Public Radio, after garnering notice in 1992 for the broadcast of his essay “SantaLand Diaries,” and is frequently published in the New Yorker.
The event coincides with an annual student humor writing contest that was held recently by the Student Committee for the Arts at UCLA and the Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA.
Meryl Friedman, director of Education and Special Initiatives at the Center for the Art of Performance, said the contest was founded to get students involved not only with the event itself but also in harnessing the inner workings of their own creativity.
“It was interesting to see how the (writers) interpreted humor – how different everyone’s humor was. Some of them were darker, some of them were more campy and ridiculous. It was really fun to read,” said Allyson Adams, a second-year dance and English student part of the Student Committee for the Arts’ education team.
The education team, which ran and judged the student end of the writing contest along with Friedman, heavily focused on the event throughout winter and spring quarters. As next year’s education team director, Adams said she was impressed by the wide variety of submissions and hopes to broaden student participation in the event.
Friedman said the contest submissions show a large range in students’ writing experience. She added she thinks it is important for students to understand they have a performing arts venue on campus that values their creativity and wants to motivate them to pick up a pen, whether their stories are funny or not.
“(The students’ stories) are kind of an informal barometer year to year of what students are thinking and what students are talking about; it’s always really a privilege to have a window into that,” Friedman said.
This year’s contest winners are Lyndsey Silveira, a fourth-year history student, Lexi Cary, a recent English alumna with a concentration in creative writing, and Jordan Wingate, a graduate English student. The winners’ short stories were sent to Sedaris, and the winners received free tickets to the event as well as signed copies of Sedaris’ latest book.
Silveira said she thinks humor is in fact difficult to capture in writing and demands strong comedic characters that constantly change her own concept of what is funny.
Both Silveira and Cary said they have been writing since they could pick up a pen.
“Humor writing takes something common among people, which is usually family, and makes us realize that you’ve been living in absurdity without realizing it and sheds light on what you take for granted,” Cary said.
Wingate said he thought the contest provided a nice opportunity to take a break from his normal study of critical analysis to attempt a new style of writing. While Wingate’s story focuses on a set of identifiably neurotic parents, much like many of Sedaris’ own stories, Wingate said humor is in the eye, or the ear, of the beholder.
Friedman said she attributes the popularity of Sedaris’ annual event to readers’ ability to identify with Sedaris’ writing. She said she thinks people have been able to live vicariously through Sedaris’ personal reflections despite their different ages and backgrounds because he talks about relatable topics.
Although Sedaris plans what he will read for each event, Friedman said each year is different based on the audience’s reactions to his work and vice versa. After his reading, Sedaris will host an informal Q&A; with no moderator and no prepared questions. Much of what Sedaris will read will be his works-in-progress and excerpts from his journal, rather than just already-published material.
“(Sedaris) is one of the few writers who will actually read in front of large groups of people in order to go through his editing process,” Friedman said.
Regardless of the format of the event, Friedman said she is confident that the long-standing relationship between Sedaris and UCLA will remain for years to come.
“It’s a really comforting thing to sit in a room,” Friedman said, “and listen to someone read their personal reflections.”