"Q&A With Lane Moore"

December 12, 2019

Book: How to Be Alone

Photo by: Roger Erickson || Header Photo by: Jena Cumbo

Author: Lane Moore

Author Bio:

"Lane Moore is a comedian, actor, writer, and musician based in New York City. She has been described by The NY Times as “ingenious…The way she manipulates tone and pace reveals an artist supremely confident in her form.” In 2018, her first book, How To Be Alone: If You Want To And Even If You Don’t was released and became a #1 bestseller.

It was praised as one of the best books of the year by The New York Times, New York Magazine, NPR, Fast Company, Marie Claire, and many others. Moore also gave a TEDx Talk based on the book, called How To Be Alone.

Her comedy show “Tinder Live!” is regarded as one of the best comedy shows in New York City by The NY Times, CBS, Time Out New York, and New York Magazine.

As a musician, Moore is the frontperson in the band “It Was Romance” which BUST Magazine named the Best Band of 2015 and Billboard named them one of 16 Female-Fronted Bands You Should Know."

1. How did your book, “How To Be Alone” come together?

I really wanted to write about something that I've never really seen written about, which is not having the family you're "supposed" to have, or the friends you’re "supposed" to have, and how much that carries through your life and can really alter what you're allowed to have in life, it's so important.

2. The cover art for “How To Be Alone” tells a minor story in itself. How did the cover come to be and did you have a hand in its design?

I really wanted the cover to look like the inside of my brain, and look like all of the things that keep me, and maybe other people, kind of isolated, and I also put little hearts in the corners of the book because it's a shape I gravitate to a lot, and it softens things.

3. What was your writing process like for “How To Be Alone”?

It was really challenging because it was excavating a lot of pain, and deciding how much I could say in a healthy way, and trying to make sure to not hurt myself in the process, which is tough when the traumas are still painful and fresh, which is really rare with books.

Many authors who write books like this, the traumas are old or very healed or their no longer alone, or they’re married and everything is fine. And I really liked the idea of writing a book where the pain was still there because I think for most people, it lingers.

4. When did you realize that you were funny, or at least had the ability to make people laugh?

I was doing accents and impressions really young. There's a photo I have of me with a Pinocchio doll and it's making a weird sideways smirk, and I was about 1 or 2 in this photo where I'm sitting next to it and making the same tiny smirk, and I love stuff like that because it shows I was pretty much born with this brain.

5. What is the happiest love story you have ever heard from two individuals that have met on a dating app?

I have so many friends who actually met on dating apps and now have babies and it's nuts. They're super happy, some people, that's their story and that's awesome!

6. What was your experience like as the Sex & Relationships Editor at Cosmopolitan and did you ever feel like you had the pulse of the love lives of young adults?

I hope so! I came to Cosmo wanting to make it super feminist and queer and talk about mental illness and show queer people in the photos we use, which really wasn't being done that often at the time, even though we see it more often now.

And also to use it as a chance to just write a lot of really silly jokes about sex and love and dating.

7. Tell us a little bit more about your remarkable ability to mine through garbage and actually find valuable items.

Oh man, it's all about location. You go to rich neighborhoods because they throw out everything, and usually in NYC just leave it on the side of the road. It's the best.