“The book attained a mind of its own, a subjectivity or an autocatalytic machinelike quality.”

The following was recorded on November 17, 2014, as part of the Nonfiction at the Food Court reading s­eries at the Woodcreek Plaza Mall in Northfork, New Jersey. We are grateful to Muriel Leyner, ­curator of the series, and to both members of the audience for allowing us to print a transcript of the event.

Consider mentioning, early on, that Dick Grunstein is the president and cofounder of Millipede Films and that after I script-doctored a zombie movie for him in 2012, we made a blind script deal for a project provisionally entitled Sizzle Reel.