Dave Eggers
Without a doubt interviewing Dave Eggers is one of life’s great rare joys. You’re advised on his website to write him a letter should you want to get in touch, which the very prospect of is a joy in itself. On my finest paper, which I use to write letters to my Grandma, I asked if I could interview him and would he prefer me to send the questions via email or letter.
Three weeks later on the most spectacular McSweeney’s letter-headed paper wrapped in an envelope smothered in stamps from San Francisco, he replied saying that the medium of letter writing would be, at least to some degree, the message - so send any and all questions that way.
When writing to my Grandma I don’t write the questions down that I ask, and so I didn’t think to write them down when sending them to Dave… Here I have ten answers to ten questions that I can’t remember asking, and in the meantime I am awaiting his next letter that hopefully has my ten questions inside.
Until then, I didn’t want to waste another moment of you not seeing this truly beautiful interaction with an absolute genius of a writer. I’ve written the questions I think the answers go with like I’m in some kind of backward game show.
- Chloe
Answers are below, and here are the possible questions I asked Dave (TBC):
What does a day in the life of Dave Eggers look like?
How do you set yourself up for a day of writing?
Where did the idea to write about how the soul destroying social media platform that has ruined the vast population’s state of wellbeing, which you’ve loosely veiled as The Every, come from? (Or something like that)
What can we do to prevent further societal damage caused by big-tech and the social media giant Facebook?
. Why did you choose to write from the perspective of a woman?
Facebook and big-tech in general hold so much power in politics (as we saw with the election of Trump and Russian corruption as well as Brexit and spreading propaganda), they offer platforms for alt-right extremists who go on to incite hate and violence, and have proven to turn their back on a report that proved they cause depression and anxiety in young adults and teenagers. What can we do to stop that? In so many words…
Has living in San Francisco enabled you to see first hand the economic and psychological destruction that Big-Tech has caused on people, society and culture?
How can humans co-exist with big-tech?
…
Do you think we’d be better off going analogue?
