I read a lot of books, averaging one or two every week. Two books that I very much enjoyed had nothing to do with business, productivity, innovation, or other work-related topics. Both are by the witty and gregarious Mary Roach (left, photo by Phyllis Christopher,) Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers and Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife. I’d spotted Stiff cleverly placed on an end-cap at Borders, the other I sought out because the writing and topic of the first one were so engaging.

As a columnist and book author, Mary’s career demonstrates the principles that we advocate through the articles in this magazine. Fortunately, Mary is so approachable that my request for an interview was promptly granted. I was very pleased at the opportunity and the results. I share that interview with you now.

Never Another Job: So, you haven’t had an office job since 1985. What was the last one you had?

Mary Roach: I worked half-time doing PR for the San Francisco Zoological Society. The best part of this job was that the office was in a trailer on zoo grounds, right next to Gorilla World. Given the sort of primates one usually has to deal with in PR jobs, I was pretty happy with my situation there by the gorillas. I wrote articles for the zoo membership magazine. I can still remember this one story about the experimental use of a laser scalpel to remove a plantar wart from the foot of one of the elephants. I watched the operation. The wart was as big as my head. It took the guy hours. This was my idea of a fun job and still sort of is.

NAJ: What motivated you to move to freelancing?

MR: What happened is that the job went from part-time to full-time, and I didn’t want to work full-time on staff anywhere. I’d been freelancing part-time, doing stories for the Sunday magazine of the SF Examiner newspaper, and didn’t want to give that up. So I quit. I would have preferred to hang on to the job a bit longer, but they wouldn’t let me.

NAJ: How did your mom (or dad, or favorite uncle, or¦) react?

MR: My parents didn’t care. I was of that generation where you just sort of checked in with your parents once or twice a year. Nothing I ever did really made much sense to my mother. She just wanted me to get married, go to church, have children, and the rest was irrelevant. I do recall some giddiness when a piece of mine was reprinted in Reader’s Digest.

The only person who really questioned my sanity was me. I have distinct memories of sitting on my living room floor, having no assignments, trying to work up my nerve to call an editor about a query I’d sent, and going, “What the fuck was I thinking, quitting my job??

NAJ: Have you had any moments of sheer despair where you wanted to just go get a steady paycheck again? If so, would you describe one in characteristically witty fashion?

MR: No, actually. Freelancing is/was a dream. It allowed me to travel all over the world, make my own hours, be creative, choose the things I do and the people I work with. The occasional financial panic was always worth it.

NAJ: How did you handle the shift from articles to books?

MR: With utter glee. Books are wonderfully freeing. With books, you are the product, and you are left alone to do what you want to do (and then pray that they like it). With magazines, the magazine is the product — not you. So you have to conform to the tone of the publication, the concerns of the advertisers, the interests of the readership, the editor’s quirks.

Financially the shift was untroubled. I got a nice advance for Stiff.

NAJ: Now that you’re writing books, do you still write articles?

MR: Occasionally. I write them as part of the publicity process. I’ll do something on a similar topic that will run at the same time the book comes out. Right now, I’m in between books and am doing some magazine pieces (for Outside and for National Geographic.)

NAJ: Beyond your writing, do you dabble (or more) in other kinds of work, whether volunteer or paid?

MR: Nope. I’m completely incompetent in all other fields.

NAJ: Do you have anything you want to say to the American Idol contestant who shares your name and interferes with Google searches about you?

MR: Please abandon your website at once. I need the URL.

NAJ: Your next book is tentatively titled Bonk: Sex in the Laboratory and due out in Spring, 2008. Explain if you will the connection between sex research and being quarantined as part of a visit to a swine farm.

MR: I am leaving this to your imagination. You will have to buy the book to find out!

Mary Roach is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers and Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife. Stiff was a 2003 American Library Association Alex Award winner, and Spook was a 2005 New York Times Notable Book. Mary has written for Outside, Wired, New Scientist, The New York Times Magazine, and NPR’s “All Things Considered.” She is a Frequent Contributor at the New York Times Book Review, a former columnist for Salon.com and a Contributing Editor at the science magazine Discover.