The Pen

Whenever I’m laying on the couch, or in a bathtub, I hear Salinger’s narrative voice. Franny and Zooey is one of my ‘read every year’ books. If I were to pick anybody who always made me want to be a better writer, it’d be J.D. Salinger. When I was a boy it was Douglas Adams, and lately it’s also Neil Gaiman and Doug Copeland, but the dialogue I hear when I close my eyes and wish I could write better is usually Salinger’s. And so here’s where I’m going to do my best to “do it for the fat lady, buddy.”