Q&A with 2012 Featured Author Larry Doyle

Larry Doyle is one of America’s foremost humorists.  23His first novel, “I Love You, Beth Cooper” won the 2008 Thurber Prize for American Humor – and that came on the heels of a four-year stint as a writer and producer of “The Simpsons.” Doyle’s latest book is “Deliriously Happy,” a collection of his humor pieces published in The New Yorker and elsewhere.  In addition to his work as a columnist and author, Doyle wrote the films “Duplex,” “Looney Tunes: Back in Action,” and “I Love You, Beth Cooper.” According to his bio, Doyle does not keep live monkeys in his house, which would be illegal.

Where do you find inspiration?
I honestly don’t know. And I’m afraid that if I figure it out, it will go away.

What advice do you have for aspiring authors?
Read, and write.

What are you reading right now?
Various paranoid tracts by assorted conspiracy theorists.

What’s your favorite opening line from a book?
A screaming came across the sky.

What book has inspired or affected you in some way?
All books inspire or affect me in some way, even the very bad ones. The book that most made me want to write was Donald Barthelme’s “Amateurs.”

If you could sit down at dinner with three other authors, living or dead, which three authors would you choose, and why?
Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway and Woody Allen, because I wouldn’t have to do any talking, and Hemingway might throw a punch at Allen.