MEGAN AMRAM’S career path is so inspiring creative types should whisper it to one another before bedtime: The Portland native woke up at 4 am, and decided to be a comedy writer and move to LA. She started a Twitter account and was so funny they asked her to write for Parks and Recreation. Amram has been blasting across the internet like some sort of fire-object from a popular song, promoting her Cosmo-style humor textbook, Science… for Her! We pursued Amram in a similar, explosive fashion emailing in all caps: “WHEN? WHEN?” She called on the phone, and we talked in a stairwell.
MERCURY: I want to ask about your special guest for your Portland reading: Dr. Carol Lee, medical doctor, 36 years of experience. What do you hope to achieve by having your mother as a special guest?
MEGAN AMRAM: Well, as a doctor, she’s in there for science, but also I think we make a good comedy team. I’ll be riffing on her outfits and she’ll be exposing personal things about my childhood.
That seems very anti-celebrity. That’s the opposite of trying to keep your private life hidden.
Yes, I hope to continue this approach as I become even more famous!
Speaking of famous people, one of my all-time favorite famous people has to be Lisa Nowak, who—
Are you talking about Diaper Lady? I love Diaper Lady!
As I was reading Science… for Her! I wondered if it was written from the perspective of Diaper Lady. [Editor’s note: Lisa Nowak is the former NASA astronaut who became famous in 2007 after allegedly stalking her ex-boyfriend’s new partner while wearing adult diapers.]
We’re all thinking about Diaper Lady.
When [the Diaper Lady situation] was happening I couldn’t keep my eyes off it. Like Science… for Her!‘s narrator, I was trapped by how surreal and hilarious the story was, but I also kind of weirdly respected her preparedness.
Yeah, with her—and with this book’s narrator—you realize they’re total psychos, but also there’s a sense of respect for all that they’ve done.
What kind of relationship did you have with the narrator when you were writing in her voice?
I totally hated her because she’s so mean, but I also felt badly for her because so much terrible stuff happens to her as the book progresses.
How did you approach the structure of writing a humor textbook?
I wanted there to be lots of breakouts and charts, but then the narrative I wrote in sequence. I wanted to see how crazy I could get!
Some jokes have become so cliche you can make a one liner out of the first sentence; “Take my wife.” The highly decorated weapons expert, Captain Lisa Marie Nowak, was tried in the press on disinformation leaked by NASA. She wasn’t chasing anyone. She was running from DoD spooks. STS-121 was the only mission ever launched by NASA against objections of the Chief Safety Officer. Coincidentally, the Space Shuttle Discovery, raced into Space, precisely 5 minutes after North Korea launched an ICBM at Havvai’i. Captain Nowak is a national hero, for what she accomplished on that 4th of July. Her only offense was in attempting to go public with what even she was surprised at that day.