Quick Questions for Bob Powers

Bob Powers: The man, the myth, the guy who makes us nearly pee ourselves with delight every time he gets up on a stage, who has written adult choose your own adventure books, and survival guides for werewolves.

Forget all that.  Bob also hosts (along former Daily Show writers Jason Reich and Scott Jacobson) the monthly funny literary series called Steamboat, at the always awesome Greenlight Bookstore.  The next one, on March 18th, Steamboat brings you Julie Klausner, Mike Albo, Max Silvestri, and Greg Walloch.

Prepare for funny.

You wrote an adult choose your own adventure book about going from temp to perm and then you tackled a werewolf survival guide in what seemed like under a year: what’s next?

I don’t know.  Psychics?  I want to help people with advanced psychic powers manage their abilities responsibly, so that pyrokinetics can exercise their gift in fun, sexy new ways.  Either that or I’ll write a really long book about my awesome if uneventful childhood.

Is it fair to say that Steamboat is the best name for a reading series ever?

It is fair.

Why would you name a reading/comedy series steamboat?

Scott Jacobson came up with that.  There’s apparently a well-known mural or something in Ft Greene, near the Greenlight bookstore, which includes a depiction of a steamboat.  Well-known by everyone but me I guess.  We liked the sound of it.  It was way better than our second choice, “Bookstore After Dark.”  That would have only brought in the erotica fans.

Looking over at the Amazon.com page for your book Happy Cruelty Day: Daily Celebrations of Quiet Desperation, I noticed that people who bought it, “also bought” Garfield Minus Garfield by Jim Davis.

My question is, what do you have in common with Garfield?

I am overweight.