I’d had no experience to prepare me. I’d never acted in a play, not even in elementary school. Just the thought of it made my palms sweat. I was the singer in a cover band in high school — we mainly did bad versions of late Nirvana songs. I’d written magazine pieces that reached hundreds of thousands of readers, but magazine audiences were an abstraction. No one applauds, boos or throws a half-empty beer can at a magazine article.

—Our very own Daniel Torday on writing, parenting, and playing the mandolin in the New York Times today