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I'm Stephen Metcath, and this is the Slate Culture Gab Fest, A Rhythm of Liquids Edition.

It's Wednesday, April 24, 2013. On today's program, the Daily Rituals of Great Creative Minds with the writer-editor Mason Curry. And then the moody new Sundance Channel TV series called Rectify. And finally, the fate of the camp sensibility with Slate's own Brian Louder. Joining me today is Slate's film critic, Dana Stevens. Hey, Dana. Hey, Stephen. And Slate's culture critic, June Thomas. Hey, June. Hey, Stephen. About six years ago, writes our guest, Mason Curry. I started collecting any information I could find about the daily routines of writers, artists, and other creative people. Mason's new book is now out. It's called Daily Rituals, How Artists Work, and it presents profiles of 161 creative minds Kafka, Austin, Osson, W.H. Auden, Balanchine, B.F. Skinner, that's a lot of minds, with the focus on how exactly they made time each day to do their work. Mason, welcome to the show. Thanks so much. Thanks so much for coming in. The subject itself is so tantalizingly brilliant.

One wonders why no one has done a book like this before.

Congrats on being the one who did it.

Am I right in thinking that this is not to reduce your book to one simple formula, but is it the great coffee versus booze dialectic? I mean, aren't these the two

sort of commanding stimulants to creative endeavors? Or is that oversimplifying? Yes, but I think

coffee wins out in the end. As I write in actually the post that went up today, a lot of the

alcohol drinkers kept the alcohol separate from the working hours.

So I think in terms of actually getting things done, the coffee is the true secret.

Yeah.

Now, you've been magpying this one for, as you say, the five, six years.

Tell us what led you to this subject in the first place.

By magpying, I mean, you've been collecting these great little juicy literary anecdotes and vignettes.

It actually started when I was procrastinating on a writing project, naturally. I had a job at

working at a magazine, and I had a story due on Monday morning, and I went into the audience,

I mean, into the office on a Sunday afternoon to knock it out, and I just couldn't get it done.

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