As you can see from my recent (semi-recent) Currently Obsessed, I’ve been reading (slash looking at with love and devotion) my nine recently-acquired back-issues of McSweeney’s. The beautifully designed literary magazine is edited by Dave Eggers himself (the whole shebang was created by him, in fact).

Dave Eggers also wrote a ton of books. And edited tons of other things. And runs fabulously funny writing centers for kids (that are adjacent to fabulously funny stores, which I plan to post about more in-depth), and — apparently this is old news — Eggers is now working in the film industry!

After a little wikipediaing and googling, I found some interesting connections between Dave Eggers and other awesome people:

  1. Eggers is the co-screenwriter for the upcoming (2009) movie Where the Wild Things Are (based on the children’s book). (Wikipedia says Eggers is also writing a novel based on the children’s book?!)
  2. He also wrote a screenplay with his wife, This Must Be The Place, which is currently in production with director Sam Mendes (American Beauty). (This is super-exciting because I love American Beauty!)
  3. Sufjan Stevens, a singer-songwriter I love, wrote the introduction for the 2007 Best American Non-Required Reading, which was edited by Eggers. Stevens also appeared in the Revenge of the Book–Eaters tour to help raise money for the student writing centers.
  4. Eggers wrote the autobiography (is it still called that when someone else writes it for you? it’s in the first-person), What is the What, of the Sudanese Valentino Achak Deng. The money from the sales of this book go to help Sudan.
  5. Dave Eggers apparently whistled in the background of Aimee Mann’s song “Little Tornado”.
  6. Eggers’ wikipedia page offers a few more examples of star-connections: Nick Hornby, Joyce Carol Oates, Zadie Smith, Beck, and more!

I don’t know how the man does it! He writes novels, edits books, runs his literary magazine, and works on movies all at the same time? Then he raises money for tons of causes and throws in some whistling to-boot?! Sigh. Love.

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