Dave Eggers (writer and publisher)

Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard

Armchair Umbrella

Tv & Film, Music, Comedy

4.6 • 70K Ratings

🗓️ 8 July 2026

⏱️ 125 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Dave Eggers (Contrapposto, The Circle, and A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius) is a bestselling author, founder of McSweeney’s, and Pulitzer Prize finalist. Dave joins the Armchair Expert to discuss the strange family lore behind McSweeney’s, growing up in John Hughes-era Illinois, and falling in love with writing and designing books as a kid. Dave and Dax talk about moving to Berkeley to help raise his little brother after his parents died, shaking up literary readings with They Might Be Giants, and building a creative community out of rejected magazine pieces. Dave explains why kids should be published, how writing can give order to chaos, and why the happiest creative life might be the one with the least preciousness.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome, welcome, welcome to armchair expert.
0:02.1	Experts on expert.
0:03.0	I'm Dan Shepard.
0:03.7	I'm joined by Lily Padman.
0:05.0	Hi.
0:05.7	We have one of my favorite authors on today, Dave Eggers.
0:09.4	Dave Eggers is a bestselling author and founder of McSweeney's.
0:13.5	His books are The Circle, a heartbreaking work of staggering genius, the every.
0:18.6	And of course, in my favorite book, What Is the What? He has a new
0:22.2	novel out now, Contraposto. Please enjoy Dave Eggers. This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace.
0:31.6	We've talked before about Rob building our website on Squarespace, and I bring it up again because
0:36.2	it's a perfect example of what
0:37.6	they do well. Rob had all the pieces, the content, the vision, the ideas, but he needed something
0:42.3	to actually take all that and make it public facing in Squarespace, was that bridge. Maybe you're
0:48.1	in the same spot. You've been developing something, a business, a skill set, a body of work, and it's
0:52.8	been private. It's been yours. But at some point, you're ready to a body of work, and it's been private. It's been yours.
0:54.5	But at some point, you're ready to put it out there, and that transition from private to
0:58.6	public can feel like a huge leap. Squarespace makes it feel like a step. Beautiful templates,
1:04.7	built-in SEO, email campaigns, scheduling, analytics, everything you need to go from. I've been
1:10.6	working on this to here it is,
1:12.5	come find me. All in one place, no code, no stitching together a bunch of different tools.
1:18.2	So if you've been sitting on something and waiting for the right moment, this might be it.
	...

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