together. I don’t really outline. I don’t like being too organized. I like being in a state where you can listen to your subconscious.

This is a book about following associations—and about how they cohere into something tangible. And, in retrospect, this string (how my mind was looking to put something together before I was aware of it) was this book’s genesis: If I could somehow make the process legible, I might find making art myself less intimidating and begin to make headway.

When you’re working, there’s so much self-loathing. Everyone feels like their stuff is awful. When I was at CalArts I was studying painting—I’m a terrible painter—but I remember there’s a stage of a painting that just looks like a mess and then all of a sudden it becomes a painting. Movies are like that too. Magically it starts to take shape. Now I

Adam Moss: I was hoping we could discuss the relationship of anxiety to drive, because I think it’s an important note for the book, and people often, at least implicitly, bring it up. And you’re candid and articulate enough to— Ira Glass: Nice flattery! As a fellow interviewer, I’m respecting the flattery. All right. I need a harsh deadline to get

“My notebook is the microbial fungus of ideas and images I draw on when I’m writing,” he said when we first spoke.

I’ve always been a freak for the zealous pursuit of the better, especially where culture is concerned. I love the story of it, and also the motive. So that, too, is what this book is—a celebration of the art that happens when instinct meets rigor.

I wrote, “You might be wondering if I’m stalking you. Well, the answer is yes. I’m obsessed with your work—obsessed, and I have a secret dream, about to be not so secret, that we can collaborate and that you’ll illustrate the cookbook, let’s call it better than a cookbook, that I’m starting to work on. I love your work, you are the Maira Kalman[ ]

There’s a nosy pleasure in that,

Then Michael wrote Cooked, and his agent—this was Binky Urban, a really powerful agent—read the part of the draft which described me, and she said, “Oh wow, what a charismatic character. Does she have any book ideas?” And he said, “Well, yes actually, she has an idea.” So I told her what I was thinking, and she said, “Yes, this is a good idea but