'Write about what you know'

'Write about what you know. And embroider the hard facts a little if absolutely necessary. I don't exaggerate or embellish so much in my stories since I started writing for the New Yorker because their fact checkers are as fearsome as their legend suggests. I wouldn't be able to say that I took my water off the table without them first establishing that I'd put it on the table. I wrote about a child molester in our village in France and their French-speaking fact-checker called the farmer and his wife across the street from us and corroborated everything with them.'

David Sedaris, author of When You Are Engulfed in Flames in the Observer.