With a few exceptions, birds are not to be trusted; it is not normal to have such soft, vulnerable bodies bookended with slashing beaks and razor-sharp claws. It is as unnatural as an armed marshmallow.
— Daniel Mallory Ortberg
One of the things that would be great is to some day have so many women comedy writers that we wouldn't say there's just one type of female humor. There's lots.
We went to church twice a week. My parents were employed in ministry; we prayed before dinner. We rollerbladed in the summer. We were allowed to watch the 'Simpsons.' I fought with my younger brother over Legos.
I'm really not a journalist, and I don't do a ton of newsy pieces. Occasionally I'll write about something that's going on recently, but I really don't do a ton of stuff that's tied to current events.
Usually, the first thing I do when I wake up is I start working, so I often won't start the day by reading anything because I like to minimize my 'commute' as much as possible. I wake up, open my laptop and start working in bed.
My parents are both pastors. In the '80s and '90s in the mainstream Christian world, it was not really common for a woman - especially a married woman and a mother - to be a pastor.
My history teacher could make us feel like he was imparting rare gossip to us when he was talking about Maria Theresa and the Habsburgs. I just loved that sense of - the Western canon is here, and it's gossipy and tawdry, and everyone is sort of goofy.
Everyone wants to be liked; everyone wants approval. No one likes being ignored.
I love 'Jane Eyre,' and I love the Bronte sisters. I actually didn't read any of them until I was in college, so I don't have quite the same connection with them that I think a lot of women do.
It certainly was unusual growing up with two fairly well-known pastors as my parents.
I grew up in a home where reading was a big deal.
Weirdly, often the more I write, the more ideas I have.
I have fun going on Twitter and the Internet. I feel safe and comfortable, and I wish everyone could feel that way.
Eighty per cent of my output is 'Mallory clowns on the Western canon,' and I'm happy to be that person.
Humor is always more interesting when it comes from someone who's had more than, like, five experiences.
My credentials, briefly: I no longer go to church or believe in God, but I can still name every one of the fruits of the Spirit and reeled for days upon hearing the announcement that Audio Adrenaline was reunited with one of the singers from DC Talk.
I'm on Twitter a lot of the day because I really like Twitter. It's great for jokes. But when I'm writing, I can't do anything else. I can't even listen to music. I just have to write, and then I can do something else. I can't multitask.
It's so, so awful for my entire body and my spine and my hands, and I have a perfectly good desk to write at, but I don't care. I love writing in bed.
The Toast's audience is about 30-35 percent male, which shocked me because I would say that we actively try to discourage men from reading our site. Apparently, there's not insignificant number of dudes out there who think that what we are doing is okay.
It's an unfortunate reality of life that toxins are constantly building up in our bodies.
The most successful Subway customers, of course, are the ones who can't keep their hands off their sandwich. Join your artist in the sandwich assembling process. That sneeze guard is a suggestion. That sneeze guard is trying to intimidate you into staying on the customer's side of the partition.
When I think of Emily Dickinson, there's not one particular poem of hers that jumps out, but I do have a very vivid image of an ill woman with giant eyes who wants to write about the sun exploding.
In the hands of a passive-aggressive person who wants to abdicate responsibility for things, texting is a great tool. You can really go nuts.
I spent the first 22 years of my life absorbing everything, like a big disgusting cell, and now I'm disgorging it with jokes added out into the world. That's a really gross metaphor.
Usually my writing is very over the top and bombastic and very, like, 'I'm amazing! Look at me!'
There's no specific mission statement for the 'Toast.'
I read my first P.G. Wodehouse when I was 12.
I attended an evangelical Christian university on the outskirts of suburban Los Angeles and by the time of my graduation was neither evangelical nor Christian.
In my final year of attending a Christian sports camp in rural Missouri, the year before I started high school, they began to offer an elective Bible study group for young Christians who wanted a chance to read in the afternoons instead of learn to water-ski.
After I do my first writing of the day, I will generally look at Twitter and Google News - and that's my big media secret. I look at Twitter and I look at Google because they pull all the headlines from other websites.
When I was twenty years old, I had gum grafts put in.
Anything where I get to write a lot of jokes and have a lot of creative control - that's all I want.
Did you know that, pound for pound, the moose is the leanest ruminant on Earth? It's true. Moose are very in tune with their natural surroundings.
I think female solitude is a mental condition as well as a physical state. You can be married and a spinster. I think spinster is an identity every woman can claim, if she will... I feel like a lot of women, or a lot of feminists, joke about taking to the sea or living alone in a cottage as this kind of fun freedom.
A lot of my creative energy is spent coming up with a concept that, once I get it, I feel like it writes itself.
I have a lot of faith in the power of joking to make something thoughtful.
I love reading religious authors. Especially in the sort of circle I move in, people tend to be more secular, and I love reading books by just really smart people of religious faith. It's always a really cool perspective.
Ghost! I miss him! Is that weird? I miss him even though I invented him. I feel a lot of tenderness toward him. I don't write a lot of stuff that is sad or that is tender and affectionate, so that has a very special place in my heart.
I graduated with an English degree and worked for awhile in academic publishing.
