About the Event

Master of satire and best-selling author of Calypso and Me Talk Pretty One Day, David Sedaris is one of America’s preeminent humor writers. Returning to the historic Orpheum Theatre in Phoenix, Sedaris will read from new and unpublished works. 

Beloved for his personal essays and short stories, David Sedaris is the author of Barrel Fever, Holidays on Ice, Naked, Me Talk Pretty One Day, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls, and Calypso, which was a Washington Post Best Book of the Year. He is the author of Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary, a collection of fables with illustrations by Ian Falconer. He is also the author of an essay-length ebook titled Themes and Variations. Each of these books was an immediate bestseller. He was also the editor of Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules: An Anthology of Outstanding Stories. His pieces regularly appear in The New Yorker and have twice been included in The Best American Essays. The first volume of his diaries, Theft By Finding: Diaries (1977–2002) was a New York Times best-selling book. As a companion piece to the book, Jeffrey Jenkins published and edited an art book of Sedaris’s diary covers, titled David Sedaris Diaries: A Visual Compendium. His book, The Best of Me, is a collection of 42 previously published stories and essays, about which novelist Andrew Sean Greer wrote in The New York Times: “You must read “The Best of Me.” It will be a new experience, knowing that enough time has passed to find humor in the hardest parts of life. More than ever — we’re allowed to laugh.” The second volume of his diaries, A Carnival of Snackery, Diaries (2003–2020) (Little Brown/Hachette, October 5, 2021) was also a New York Times bestseller and the audiobook was selected as part of Apple’s Best Audiobooks of the Year for 2021. His next book will be Happy-Go-Lucky (Little, Brown, May 31,2022).

Sedaris and his sister, Amy Sedaris, have collaborated under the name The Talent Family and have written half-a-dozen plays, which have been produced at La Mama, Lincoln Center, and The Drama Department in New York City. These plays include Stump the Host, Stitches, One Woman Shoe (which received an Obie Award), Incident at Cobbler’s Knob, and The Book of Liz, which was published in book form by Dramatists Play Service.

Sedaris has been nominated for five Grammys® for Best Spoken Word and Best Comedy Album. His audio recordings include David Sedaris: Live for Your Listening Pleasure and David Sedaris Live at Carnegie Hall. A feature film adaptation of his story “C.O.G.” was released after a premiere at the Sundance Film Festival (2013). Since 2011, he can be heard annually on a series of live recordings on BBC Radio 4 titled Meet David Sedaris.  In 2019, Sedaris became a regular contributor to CBS Sunday Morning, and his masterclass, David Sedaris Teaches Storytelling and Humor, was released.

There are more than 16 million copies of his books in print, and they have been translated into 32 languages. He has been awarded the Terry Southern Prize for Humor, Thurber Prize for American Humor, Jonathan Swift International Literature Prize for Satire and Humor, Time 2001 Humorist of the Year Award, and the Medal for Spoken Language from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In March 2019, he was elected as a member into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2020 the New York Public Library voted Me Talk Pretty One Day one of the 125 most important books of the last 125 years.   

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