Michael Schaub is familiar to many in the book business as one of the shrewd and hilarious voices behind Bookslut, the pioneering, cheeky site that Jessa Crispin launched in the early 2000s. Since then, he’s been an indispensable voice in the literary community—both as an incisive literary critic and as one of the funniest people on Twitter (@michaelschaub [3]).

Born and raised in San Antonio, Schaub attended Texas A&M University from 1995 to 1999, where he majored in English and journalism. He worked as associate editor, and later as managing editor, at Bookslut from 2002 to 2011, and is now a freelance writer and regular contributor to NPR and the Los Angeles Times. He lives in Austin, Texas.

On a few occasions over the years you’ve mentioned that the late literary critic D. G. Myers, your former professor, was your mentor. Did he inspire you to become a literary critic yourself?
Absolutely. He knew I wanted to be a journalist—at the time, I was working for the Texas A&M student newspaper—but he always encouraged me to pursue literary criticism. This was in spite of, or maybe because of, the fact that he and I disagreed on pretty much everything, from politics to literature. David loved to argue, and he’d encourage me to disagree with him. But I definitely wouldn’t have become a book critic without him; I’d have likely kept reviewing music. I still think of David every time I write a review. I miss him every day.

When Bookslut launched in May 2002, it quickly established itself as one of the smartest online literary sites around. How did you become involved with it?
It was pure luck on my part. I happened to be friends with Jessa Crispin, who lived in Austin at the time, and she told me she had started a literary blog and webzine, and asked if I’d contribute. I instantly agreed, even before I knew what the hell a blog was. But I just happened to be friends with the right person at the right time—it was kind of like being neighbors with Patti Smith or Kim Gordon, and having them say, “Hey, I’m starting a band. You play bass, right?” She was just the most incredible person to learn from.

Was Bookslut your first foray into writing about literary matters for a public forum?
It was. I had previously written for my student newspaper and for a few websites, but mostly about music. But when Jessa asked, I basically just pictured David Myers telling me I’d be insane not to do it. And I’ve been writing about literature ever since.

Bookslut’s daily blog was deliciously irreverent and opinionated. Did you ever take any heat for posts you wrote?
I’m sure I did, and I probably deserved most of it. We were bored by the mainstream literary coverage at the time, which seemed joyless and humorless, so I think a lot of people weren’t used to seeing, say, profanity in book reviews. The one post I remember that I did get a lot of pushback for was—well, I probably can’t say it in Poets & Writers, but it was kind of a throwaway joke that played on the word jazz sounding like another, very offensive word. I actually got a lot of angry e-mails from people who were shocked that I’d make a double entendre, and who evidently did not see any irony in complaining about risqué language in a blog called Bookslut.

I know you took a hiatus from Bookslut at some point, but then you returned for a while. What years did you work there, and what kind of writing and reviewing did you engage in afterward?
I wrote for Bookslut from 2002 to 2011, though I did take a hiatus in the middle of that. I was going through a rough period of depression, my brother had just become gravely ill, and I just couldn’t write. I could barely even read. After I left I was mostly reviewing books for NPR, and working on some essays and fiction that I am still working on, because I am apparently the slowest writer in the history of the universe.

You currently review books for a wide variety of publications—NPR, the New York Times Book Review, the Los Angeles Times. Where else?
Besides those, it’s just Guns & Ammo. No, I’m kidding—I’ve been lucky to get the chance to write about books for Men’s Journal; the associate editor there, Jason Diamond, is an incredibly nice and talented guy. I’m also a staff writer at the Millions, where some of these essays I’m writing will eventually go when they’re done (I’m thinking around 2037). And I cohost a video podcast called The Book Report for the Millions, along with my close friend Janet Potter, who’s another Bookslut alum. Those are maybe the most fun things that I do—it’s basically a chance to talk to one of my best friends about books every week. And sometimes my pug makes a cameo.

On average, how many galleys and books do you get per week? Of the books you review, what percentage are assigned to you?
Let me just look around the house. Okay, judging by these piles, I get about fifteen thousand books every day, and one day they will all collapse on me and kill me. Seriously, though, I get about fifty a week—it can be challenging to keep up, but I can’t complain, obviously. As far as assignments go, for NPR, I send my editors, the wonderful Petra Mayer and Rose Friedman, a list of books I’d be interested in writing about, and they’ll pick the ones they’re interested in and assign me those. For the Times, they’ll usually just assign me books, although the writing I do there is more reporting than reviews.

Other than your interest in a particular author, what sorts of things influence you when selecting a book for coverage? Do relationships with editors and/or publicists help? What about blurbs, prepub reviews, the size of an advance?
There are definitely publishers and publicists I pay close attention to. If a book is published by Riverhead, Knopf, Two Dollar Radio, Melville House, Deep Vellum, FSG, and so many others, there’s a good chance it’s going to be great. I don’t pay attention to blurbs and I don’t read prepub reviews, and I generally have no idea how much money the authors have gotten for the books—when you’re not in New York, you’re kind of insulated from publishing gossip, which is a blessing. But mostly I look for interesting voices, either established or new, from a variety of different backgrounds. It’s unscientific, I guess, but some books just kind of grab you.

You review both fiction and nonfiction. Do you have a preference for one over the other?
I honestly don’t, although I end up reviewing more fiction—I’m not sure why that is. Maybe I do have a preference, actually, and I just don’t want to admit it and hurt nonfiction’s feelings. It’s a very delicate genre, and I don’t want it to feel slighted.

How many books do you read each week for work?
I probably read about two or three a week for work, even if they’re not all ones I’m reviewing—if I’m writing about a book, I like to read as much as I can of the author’s other work before doing the review, just to have some context. As a result, I have very little time for pleasure reading, so I’ve got a to-be-read pile that’s basically two bookshelves at this point. I dream of catching up with all of them on vacation someday. So as soon as I can afford to take seven years off, that’s what I’ll be doing.

For Jacket Copy, you do a great deal of reporting on of-the-moment literary issues, which was something you also did for years on Bookslut’s blog. Are you basically on call for these types of pieces or do you propose topics for reportage?
For those posts I send Carolyn Kellogg, my amazing editor there, a list of possible stories, and she’ll let me know which one she’d like me to write about. There’s almost never a shortage of interesting literary stories, so it’s usually easy to find some good topics. Except August, when the publishing industry goes to sleep for a whole month. Dear God, I hate August.

I get the sense that you not only enjoy using Twitter but revel in it. Other than its entertainment value, how useful to you has it been in your career as a book critic?
I do love Twitter, God help me. For me, it’s been a great way to make connections, not just with editors, but with other journalists who cover the same beat that I do. And I’ve made a lot of friends through Twitter, which is kind of weird at first, but it beats the way I used to make friends—going up to strangers at the supermarket and asking them what they think about Jonathan Franzen. I have gotten kicked out of so many supermarkets that way.

The media landscape has changed considerably since those early heady days when blog was still a relatively new word. Do you feel any sort of nostalgia for them?
I feel nostalgia for pretty much everything, the litblog world included. At the time, it seemed like we were doing something new and democratic and fun, and there were so many great voices doing blogs—Maud Newton, Mark Sarvas, Gwenda Bond, Laila Lalami, and so many others. But they’ve all gone on to do such great work, and now there’s Twitter, which has kind of opened up the world even more, so I’m happy with how things are. I do miss the blogs, though.

Do you have a favorite book review you’ve written?
Oh, my reviews are like my children—I forget about them as soon as I send them away. No, seriously, three come to mind. I reviewed Barry Hannah’s Long, Last, Happy: New and Selected Stories and Kristin Hersh’s Don’t Suck, Don’t Die: Giving Up Vic Chesnutt for NPR, and I was happy with the way those came out. I’m also fond of a review I did of Charles D’Ambrosio’s Loitering: New and Collected Essays for the Portland Mercury. That was assigned to me by my friend Alison Hallett, who was running book coverage there at the time, and I loved the book and I loved writing the review.

Where do you see the future of book coverage in ten years?
A Trump presidency has turned America into a vast wasteland, and killer robots roam the streets freely, shooting anyone who—wait, sorry. That’s the answer to another question. I’m actually optimistic about the future of book coverage; I think more publications are going to realize that they need to have a robust book section to draw in readers. I make fun of millennials on Twitter sometimes, but it actually seems like that generation cares deeply about literature, so I think they’re going to demand more reviews, more features, more interviews. I’m cynical about a lot of things, but not about the future of literature. Maybe I’ll be proved wrong, but I doubt it.

What books that you aren’t reviewing are you most looking forward to reading in the near future?
There are so, so many, but off the top of my head: The Turner House by Angela Flournoy; The Speechwriter: A Brief Education in Politics by Barton Swaim; Welcome to Braggsville by T. Geronimo Johnson; A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara; and M Train by Patti Smith.

Michael Taeckens  has worked in the publishing business since 1995. He is a cofounder of Broadside: Expert Literary PR (broadsidepr.com).