Simon Rich is a writer for SNL. He has published work in the New Yorker and Mad magazine. He is currently working on a novel, which will follow two humor books released by Random House.
Rich is 24 years old.
Rich will be in the District at bookstore Politics & Prose on Connecticut Avenue on Sunday, Oct. 26 to promote the release of his second and most recent work, “Free-Range Chickens.”
“I’m writing about fear,” said Rich. “I’m writing one piece all over again,” he said, when asked to characterize the style of his new release.
His point about fear and humor is realized in two New Yorker articles, one of which presents discussions at the adult table as perceived by a kids’ table. The other imagines conversations about him from the ages of 12 to 16 – parodying insecurity, self-aggrandizement and the perceived importance of adolescence. In the work, “Hey Look,” Rich writes from the perspective of an outsider commenting on his writing a “scathing poem for the literary magazine” at age 16.
“The only person at this school who isn’t a phony is Simon. Yeah. He sees right through us,” his fictional peers say in the story.
In “The Wisdom of Children,” Rich synthesizes an adult conversation from a child’s perspective to basic elements: sex, PG-13 movies and grandparents sounding off on politics.
The son of New York Times editorial writer Frank Rich, Simon Rich graduated from Harvard University in January 2007, after taking a semester off to write. His first book, “Ant Farm: And Other Desperate Situations,” was released two months after. Rich qualifies “Free-Range Chickens” as a work structurally similar to his first.
He cites influences ranging from novelist Philip Roth to “The Simpsons” to Mad magazine to ’80s sitcoms like “The Golden Girls.”
Rich said he secured a writing job with SNL after his editor sent along his first book and the pieces Rich wrote for The New Yorker.
“At first I thought it was an elaborate practical joke,” he said of the experience. Rich said he generally avoids political-based humor, but he gave a nod to his experience writing for the show: “It really is a writer’s show,” he said. “They take pretty big risks,” adding that risk-taking is not just allowed but encouraged. Writing for SNL is largely collaborative, he said, hesitant to say which sketches he contributed to.
Rich is a former president of The Harvard Lampoon, the prestigious college humor publication with a membership history including American author John Updike and contemporary comedians Conan O’Brien and B.J, Novak, among other writers for comedy shows today.
He spoke to his experience writing for a college audience: “I don’t even know if the staff of the Lampoon reads the Lampoon,” he said, adding: “You can get away with more because you know no one is ever going to read what you write.”
