By Hannah Crooks
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When she is not hanging out with her St. Bernard, or scouring the internet for dream real estate listings, author Meghan Daum is writing for one of her many freelance positions. She has been a columnist for the Los Angeles Times for 11 years, and currently writes a column for the New York Times book review, articles for magazines, and she has completed five books.
Normally, Daum lives in New York City, but as a freelance writer, she can do her work from anywhere.
“There was a time not so long ago where it would be unthinkable to have a columnist writing for the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times,” Daum said. “But because the business is so diffuse now, they can’t really ask freelancers to not write for places.”
For her column in the Los Angeles Times, her topics range from holiday e-cards to the “Trumpocalypse.” The column usually covers a mixture of culture and politics.
“I’m not right off the headlines, so it’s usually a deeper dive,” Daum said. “I don’t have a reliable political ideology. I take a quirky, sometimes counterintuitive look at things going on in the world.”
Daum is currently a visiting professor at the University of Iowa. She teaches in the non-fiction graduate writing program in the English department. Specifically, she teaches an essay writing workshop and a seminar in cultural criticism.
This Tuesday, January 31, at 7:00 p.m., Daum will read from her book, Unspeakable: And Other Subjects of Discussion, at Prairie Lights, 15 S. Dubuque St.
Unspeakable: And Other Subjects of Discussion is a collection of essays covering many topics, including her love of dogs, working with foster children, and even Joni Mitchell. “I wanted to have them be related thematically in a way that they could be read consecutively, but also in pieces, if that’s what the reader wants,” Daum said.
The concluding essay in her book is entitled, “Diary of a Coma,” and it tells about a time when she was in a coma for five days.
“It was this very weird thing because it was five days that I was completely unaware of– the time just didn’t exist,” Daum said. “One second, I was in the hospital, the next, it was five days later.”
During those five days, however, Daum said her family and friends were worried she may not wake up.
“So they went through this traumatic experience that I actually didn’t,” she said. “And when I woke up they said, ‘Oh my gosh! What have you learned from this?’ and I wasn’t able to give them a satisfying answer.”
Daum worked to eliminate the idea that someone needs to experience a revelation after a painful situation.
“One big theme in the book is the difficulties of dealing with the pressure that we have to… come out of a crisis a better person,” she said. “It occurred to me that maybe… the fact that I had this thing and I wasn’t radically changed is actually the best possible outcome.”
There are definitely difficult things about being a freelance writer, Daum said. “You just have to have a strong stomach for uncertainty, financial and otherwise.”
Daum feels fortunate that her writing career has been successful. “The good news is that this has worked out for me, because I’m terrible at everything else. My fallback career was playing the oboe, believe it or not,” she said. “Which probably would’ve been just as fly-by-night.”
Meghan Daum
When: 7 p.m. Tuesday, January 31
Where: Prairie Lights, 15 S. Dubuque St.
Cost: Free