The Uncloistered Dave Eggers: An Interview

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“With Voice of Witness, after we published Rising Up and Rising Down, William T. Vollmann’s book about the history and justifications of violence, it seemed logical that we might use our small-publishing model to create social justice books that required low overhead and a lot of volunteer help. With all the projects that have come out of our block on Valencia Street, we start with a small idea, with almost no funding, and then create a small model program. And then we grow very slowly. Voice of Witness started four years ago and we’ve done four books; not lightning-fast growth, but then again we have no money and only one full-time staffer, Mimi Lok, and one part-timer, Chris Ying. Our goal in general is to come up with workable models that can exist with lean staffs and low overhead, such that we can get by without much money—that we can live to see another day.

“But at their core all the projects, including The Believer and Wholphin [a quarterly DVD compilation], are fairly logical extensions of the core goal of everyone in the office, which is to advance the cause of the written word generally, and to, as often as we can, use the written word to promote social justice.”

You don’t hole yourself up in a rarefied literary world, but instead get out in the real world and meet real people. Is it more fun out there?

“I tried the more cloistered writery life, and I guess I realized it wasn’t for me. It works really well for a lot of people, but I was going a bit nutty just thinking my important literary thoughts all day. I have no doubt it’s a Catholic guilt thing, but the fact that I can make a living writing books seems to underline the essential inequity of the world. My parents worked very hard all their lives, and I think they would have looked askance at me if I was just sitting alone in a room all day, writing a book every few years and not doing much else.”

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