Author Q&A: Peter Mehlman Talks Mandela Was Late

Our client Peter Mehlman, the Seinfeld writer and co-executive producer who coined lines like "Yada Yada" and "sponge worthy," sat down with Write On Online to talk about his essay collection Mandela Was Late.

The interview covers a lot of ground. Mehlman explains that after more than a decade of writing almost nothing but scripts, he was ready to write full sentences again, a return to his roots as a young reporter at the Washington Post. That instinct led him toward essays and op-eds rather than straight journalism, and the name recognition from Seinfeld opened doors that got his early pieces read. What he did not expect was for those scattered essays to add up to a book. That took years, and it took his longtime friend and eventual publisher, Mike Sager, spotting the throughline running underneath pieces Mehlman had never intended as a collection.

Mehlman is candid about the difference between writing for television and writing for himself. He talks about the freedom of the essay form, how there is no cast or crew to rescue a weak page, and how that same freedom is also the hardest part, since every choice, and every judgment of the work, falls on the writer alone. He also gets into what it takes to write humor on purpose: some of it can be taught, like brevity and timing, but a real comedic sensibility either exists or it does not.

Interviews like this are exactly what a well-placed press campaign is meant to produce: a conversation that goes past the press release and lets a client's own voice and process carry the piece.

Read the full Q&A on writeononline.com.

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