[upbeat music] - [Narrator] For writer and humorous David Sedaris, growing up in the suburbs of 1960s Raleigh offered a lot of inspiration, but it would take eight years of writing diaries before he would share his humorous perspective on life with anyone.

It was well worth the wait.

David left Raleigh for two tries at college before finally graduating from art school in Chicago.

That's where NPR Star Ira Glass saw him at a performance venue in 1992.

This meeting eventually led to his debut on NPR's morning edition where he read about his escapades as a Macy's elf in Santa Land Diaries.

As David says, the more embarrassing something is, the more people can relate to it.

In addition to writing 12 New York Times bestsellers and picking up Grammy nods for his spoken words, David picks up trash, lots of it, for four to six hours a day.

In recognition of his volunteer litter picking, there is now a trash truck in his neighborhood of West Sussex England named Pig Pen Sedaris.

David has said of his career, the truer I remained to who I really am, the more people seem to go for it, and I've gotta believe that would work for anybody if it could work for me.