lemony snicket, or daniel handler

Last night, in the company of great friends, I enjoyed a lecture with Daniel Handler, also known as Lemony Snicket. I haven't read the series of unfortunate events, I will admit, but I fond what he had to say interesting and hilarious! He's written books for adults as well, and I plan on reading them. He wrote, "Basic 8," which is now out of print and, "Adverbs," which his latest work.

We all had a blast. I really didn't know what to expect. Some friends of mine were up from San Diego, and I thought this might be something cool to go to for FREE, and what do you know, it was. Love it when things work out like that.

He had a lot of funny stories, but my favorite story was how he came up with the name Lemony Snicket..... Apparently he hates naming characters, because they're always crazy odd names, like many of the characters in the Series of Unfortunate Events. But, long before he even thought about writing children's books, he was working on his book, "Basic 8," and doing research. Well, he admitted that it was mostly goofing off, and had little to do with research, but that's how he explained it back then. Well, what he was doing was calling up right wing religious and political groups and asking them to send them info about what they believed in. Well, one day one of the chicks asked him his name, and in a panic he said, Lemony Snicket. He said there was a pause, and then she finally asked, is it spelled like it sounds? And he said, "Yeah, why don't you read it back to me," because he had no idea how to spell it himself! And, then he used it later on while he was working as an assistant at a community college and instead of working, he spent his time reading small independent newspapers and writing outrageous letters to the editors about the most innocent topics, like putting in new drinking fountains. And he also signed those, Lemony Snicket. It's a lot more funny of a story listening to him tell it, trust me! I hope I got the gist of it though!