Augusten Burroughs Is...
By Kristen Twedt

A_P: Your memoirs have been called everything from brilliant to repulsive. What kind of feedback do you get from your readers?

AB: Ninety-nine percent of feedback from my readers is positive. But there is that one percent who will say 'Your book is disgusting. How can you write about gay sex with children?' To which I tell them, 'Look. There is no gay sex with kids in Running With Scissors. There is, however, sexual violence with a child.' They want their money back. So, I try to say in as nice a way I can, 'You're not getting a fucking dime back.'

A_P: Your third book and second memoir, Dry, centers on your battle with alcoholism. You write graphically of your near-death experience with alcohol poisoning. What did alcohol do for you, and what got you sober?

AB: I started drinking when I was 13. You realize you are an alcoholic with that first drink because it feels like finding a missing piece to yourself. When I drank, I always got drunk. I started drinking heavily when I was 17 and kept drinking until I was 30. After a while, the sensations change. Your body chemistry changes and so does the way your sympathetic nervous system responds to the alcohol. You can't get to that same safe place and can never reach that desirable escape hatch anymore. That's when you care about nothing but drinking because it takes so much alcohol to get there. And that's where I was when I nearly died of alcohol poisoning.

A_P: So, what turned things around?

AB: At that point, I knew it was either die or write. Almost prophetically, my mother had always told me that writing could get you through anything. All those years I spent drinking, I didn't write. I didn't write for real until I got out of rehab. The writing was therapeutic and helped me make sense of the mess, kept me busy. I wrote Sellevision in a week. When I became sober, I was overwhelmed by all that new free time, time that I used to spend drinking. I had to write in order to figure out my life, to fill the time. I would go to therapy, to work and then write everything that happened to me. Dry was written in real time, as it was happening. In it's raw form, it was 1,800 pages.

A_P: So, the books that saved your life also got you on the New York Times Bestseller List. Tell me how that came about.

AB: I sent Sellevision out to agents, and one sold it right away to St. Martin's Press, which surprised me a little. I was stunned, though, when they bought Dry. I told them, 'If you like that, I should give you one about my crazy childhood.' They told me to write it because that story really needed to go out before Dry. So, I wrote Scissors, and they put that out first.

A_P: You write about the journals you kept as a kid, documenting everything from eating dog chow to your lengthy relationship with a pedophile. What became of them?

AB: I had enormous amounts of data because I wrote everything down. I'm not sure why I kept them, but I saved all my journals and carted them from apartment to apartment. Much of what I experienced was indelible. It's not like you can forget the kind of crap that happened to me. But I wrote whole chunks of conversation, which proved very helpful when I started writing the books.

A_P: Magical Thinking is a collection of stories about.?

AB: Magical Thinking is a collection of stories that come from all periods of my life. Scissor" and Dry were memoirs, but this book is made up of chapters that tell stories from all aspects of my childhood and recent events.

A_P: You write explicitly about your homosexual relationships. How do readers respond to your openness?

AB: Most people are very comfortable with it, are great about it. I hear mostly from married women with kids and straight guys, both married and single. The guys often say 'I don't really like gay guys, but you are cool.' I find that people are better about discussing homosexuality one-on-one, and that's fine. I don't hide that about myself, but I don't flaunt it, either. It's as much a part of me as my being right-handed. I understand when people get upset with a gay freak parade. That's just not me.

A_P: Plenty of people have experienced sexual abuse, broken families, alcoholism, but only a handful enjoy the rampant literary success you enjoy. What would you tell novice writers about pursuing a path as a published author?

AB: I have a goddamned fourth-grade education. I'm proof that anybody can write. Read a hell of a lot. I didn't read anything of consequence until I was 24, but once I started, I quickly got up to speed. Honestly, I have the literary taste of your average soccer mom.

A_P: Who do you read?

AB: Elizabeth Berg and Anita Shreve, these days. Shreve's Fortune's Rocks is like eating 24 éclairs and losing weight.

A_P: As a best-selling author, besides the obvious advantages to the income and expansive readership, what keeps you writing?

AB: Writing is great therapy that can work for anyone. It is what saved me. I'll never stop writing for me.  I think anyone who can talk can write. Not everyone can write something that is publishable. Really, you should just try to talk with your writing, and be honest. The more you write and the more comfortable you become with writing, the more it becomes a tool to express yourself. It helps keep you balanced, in tune with whatever it is you want to do.

A_P: Like staying sober?

AB: Yes. Absolutely. When you decide to become sober, you have to move on to something new. It might involve losing friends and family and your job, anything that gets in the way of staying sober. It's a huge commitment. And so is writing.

A_P: How is life for Augusten these days?

AB: I have Dennis, and two dogs and a house close to my brother and nephew, and I see my dad and my step-mom. Things are great. When I'm not on tour, we really have a very normal lifestyle. St. Martin's is like this big happy family to me. From day one, they have treated me like a superstar, but we're all such good friends. Life is good. Busy. Very satisfying.

A_P: What's on the horizon for readers with a large appetite for Augusten Burroughs?

AB: Possible Side Effects is another collection of stories like Magical Thinking and is due out in 2006. Next year, my publisher will release The Thirteenth Day (of Christmas). It's a collection of my favorite holiday horror stories. You know I've got a hell of a lot of those to tell.

A_P: And what, Mr. Burroughs, is the key to all this happiness?

AB: You have to make your own damned happiness. I decided early on not to shy away from the controversial or humor that others might not appreciate. I also decided not to be a victim of my upbringing. I wish I could drill that into people's heads. You will be happy when you decide to be happy and do what you need to do.

Writer and columnist Kristen Twedt lives in Hattiesburg, MS. She has a Web site at www.kristentwedt.com.