John Leland

About Me

I'm a newspaper reporter in New York, trying to improve my fiction writing. Also the author of two nonfiction books, "Hip: The History" and "Why Kerouac Matters: The Lessons of 'On the Road' (They're Not What You Think." And a one-time student of Fictionaut's own Marcy Dermansky.

Why do you write?

I write in order to put off doing something productive and beneficial to others, like taking cooking classes. Also because I want to hear what stories my characters have to tell me.

At some point I got the idea that I wanted to play with primitive American forms -- tall tales, comics, the blues, ad jingles, minstrel shows, yankee peddler stories, etc -- and treat them as if they were greek myths or scriptures, the basis for modern tales. So far this idea works better at parties than in practice. Not that it works that well at parties, either.

Any favorite authors? Books?

Nick Hornby's "High Fidelity" totally pissed me off that I didn't write it. No one can out record-nerd me. Then when I started trying to write fiction, I realized that I couldn't have written it after all.

My favorite books include Ann Douglas's "Terrible Honesty," George W.S. Trow's "Within the Context of No Context," Lewis Hyde's "Trickster Makes This World," Ann Fadiman's "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down," William Finnegan's "Cold New World," Malcolm Gladwell's "The Tipping Point." If anyone asks me what to read, I say either Sam Lipsyte's "Homeland" or Gary Shteyngart's "The Russian Debutante's Handbook," depending on how filthy I think his or her mind is.