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Author Dan Zevin breaks into radio with his talk-show "Everyday People"-extraordinary conversations with ordinary folk.

Dan Zevin got the idea to do a radio show back in 1994 when he was doing radio appearances to promote his humor book, Entry Level Life. "I'd never set foot in a radio station before and I thought it was so much fun, except that I wanted to be the one asking all the questions. I thought, this is a really cool job. I want to do this, not this other thing."

Last year Zevin went through on-air training for WMFO 91.5, the radio station at Tufts University, which serves, according to Zevin, "the greater Somerville-Medford-Cambridge tri-city region," although, "on a clear day you might be able to get it downtown." He made his on-air debut with a show he called "Talk and Roll." "I had writers coming on, and they all started sounding the same after a while. They all had something to plug. And it started getting really boring. I thought, let me just get someone in here who has something to say beyond, 'We'll be playing at T.T. the Bear's Place and let's play a cut from our new album.'"

Inspired by Working, Studs Turkel's oral history about working people, Zevin decided to try something different-to focus on voices rarely heard on the air. "For some reason we've decided that movie stars, best selling novelists and rock stars are worth reading about and listening to, but everyone else isn't. And I listen to some pop musician on the radio talking about his stand on abortion or even favorite vacation spot, and I really don't care. I'm much more interested in what people I meet in my life have to say."

Zevin's approach is much lighter than Turkel's. He calls his show "Everday People," and in its first six months, his guests included a nurse, a librarian, a fire fighter, a sandwich maker, a waitress, a meter maid, a used furniture salesman, an auto mechanic, a bike shop mechanic, a hair stylist and even a teenager (Zevin's younger brother). It's a call-in show, and lately, he says, the number of calls has been picking up. " It's starting as a cult thing and people are telling their friends about it."

In addition to chatting about their jobs, Zevin requires each guest to sing, and to participate in what he calls the talent segment. What kind of talent do they have to exhibit? "Whatever they want," Zevin says. For example, "It turned out the UPS man was writing a sitcom on the side about his girlfriend's cat, and all he had done at that point was write the theme song. So he sang it."

Although he has never done radio before, 30-year-old Zevin seems unphased by the pressures of live performance. "For me it's like second nature. I went to school to learn how to interview people. I never did it live over the radio, but it's like having a conversation. I'm interested in everyone and I want to know what they do-at a party I'm always the one carrying the conversation, constantly asking questions." As for his guests, he says, "Everyone is really good at it. It never ceases to amaze me; it's as if they've been interviewed a million times. I think it has to do with watching TV all the time. Everyone is ready to be a star themselves."

The show, which Zevin doesn't get paid for, is only one of his current projects. An '86 graduate of NYU with a degree in journalism, he is a frequent contributor to Rolling Stone, as well as the author of Entry Level Life, a humorous look about at getting a job after college, which captured the No. 3 spot on the Boston Globe bestseller list in 1994. He was inspire to write the book by his own post-college job search, which led him to a five-year stint at Walking Magazine, where, as gear and equipment editor, his job was "ripping apart sneakers all day and inspecting the in-sole system and the laces." Entry Level Life has also led to an unexpected side career: For the second year in a row Zevin has been invited to give both graduation speeches and humorous career counseling seminars at universities around the country. And he is currently working on a second humor book about weddings, inspired by his own wedding last September. "The only way I'll get material for my books is to continue to have commitments," he jokes. "I think I have to buy a house now."

Working at home, Zevin depends on feedback for his humor from a local writing group that calls itself "The Incredibly Prestigious Somerville Writer's Colony." Which humorists have inspired him?"I think Dave Barry is brilliant," says Zevin and emphasizes that writing humor is painstaking. "In order to have a good humor book, it has to look like it took 10 minutes to write it. In order for it to look like like it took 10 minutes to write, it takes me 10 hours a day to write a paragraph."

With radio, the return is more immediate, and Zevin hopes eventually to move his show to a commercial station. He traces his interest in radio back to childhood, when he used to listen to anything. "I used to listen to Dr. Ruth Westheimer when she was on for 15 minutes," he confesses. "I charted her fame." These days he's an avid listener of "Fresh Air" and Christopher Lydon's "The Connection."

Zevin ends each of his radio interviews with a question he says was inspired by Barbara Walters' infamous "If you were a tree what kind of tree would you be?' For example, he asked the auto mechanic what kind of car he'd be ("A sleek, powerful Lamborghini."). I ask Zevin what kind of "everday person" he would be. "I would be one of those guys you find sitting at the counter of Dunkin Donuts drinking coffee and talking to his buddies all day long. That's the guy I'd be. You get to talk to people, drink coffee, eat donuts. What more could you ask for?"

Jane Rosenzweig is a staff editor at The Atlantic Monthly.

reprinted from The Improper Bostonian with permission.

	Author Dan Zevin breaks into radio with his talk-show "Everyday People"-extraordinary conversations with ordinary folk.
	Dan Zevin got the idea to do a radio show back in 1994 when he was doing radio appearances to promote his humor book, Entry Level Life. "I'd never set foot in a radio station before and I thought it was so much fun, except that I wanted to be the one asking all the questions. I thought, this is a really cool job. I want to do this, not this other thing."
	Last year Zevin went through on-air training for WMFO 91.5, the radio station at Tufts University, which serves, according to Zevin, "the greater Somerville-Medford-Cambridge tri-city region," although, "on a clear day you might be able to get it downtown." He made his on-air debut with a show he called "Talk and Roll." "I had writers coming on, and they all started sounding the same after a while. They all had something to plug. And it started getting really boring. I thought, let me just get someone in here who has something to say beyond, 'We'll be playing at T.T. the Bear's Place and let's play a cut from our new album.'"
	Inspired by Working, Studs Turkel's oral history about working people, Zevin decided to try something different-to focus on voices rarely heard on the air. "For some reason we've decided that movie stars, best selling novelists and rock stars are worth reading about and listening to, but everyone else isn't. And I listen to some pop musician on the radio talking about his stand on abortion or even favorite vacation spot, and I really don't care. I'm much more interested in what people I meet in my life have to say."
	Zevin's approach is much lighter than Turkel's. He calls his show "Everday People," and in its first six months, his guests included a nurse, a librarian, a fire fighter, a sandwich maker, a waitress, a meter maid, a used furniture salesman, an auto mechanic, a bike shop mechanic, a hair stylist and even a teenager (Zevin's younger brother). It's a call-in show, and lately, he says, the number of calls has been picking up. " It's starting as a cult thing and people are telling their friends about it."
	In addition to chatting about their jobs, Zevin requires each guest to sing, and to participate in what he calls the talent segment. What kind of talent do they have to exhibit? "Whatever they want," Zevin says. For example, "It turned out the UPS man was writing a sitcom on the side about his girlfriend's cat, and all he had done at that point was write the theme song. So he sang it."
	Although he has never done radio before, 30-year-old Zevin seems unphased by the pressures of live performance. "For me it's like second nature. I went to school to learn how to interview people. I never did it live over the radio, but it's like having a conversation. I'm interested in everyone and I want to know what they do-at a party I'm always the one carrying the conversation, constantly asking questions." As for his guests, he says, "Everyone is really good at it. It never ceases to amaze me; it's as if they've been interviewed a million times. I think it has to do with watching TV all the time. Everyone is ready to be a star themselves."
	The show, which Zevin doesn't get paid for, is only one of his current projects. An '86 graduate of NYU with a degree in journalism, he is a frequent contributor to Rolling Stone, as well as the author of Entry Level Life, a humorous look about at getting a job after college, which captured the No. 3 spot on the Boston Globe bestseller list in 1994. He was inspire to write the book by his own post-college job search, which led him to a five-year stint at Walking Magazine, where, as gear and equipment editor, his job was "ripping apart sneakers all day and inspecting the in-sole system and the laces." Entry Level Life has also led to an unexpected side career: For the second year in a row Zevin has been invited to give both graduation speeches and humorous career counseling seminars at universities around the country. And he is currently working on a second humor book about weddings, inspired by his own wedding last September. "The only way I'll get material for my books is to continue to have commitments," he jokes. "I think I have to buy a house now."
	Working at home, Zevin depends on feedback for his humor from a local writing group that calls itself "The Incredibly Prestigious Somerville Writer's Colony." Which humorists have inspired him?"I think Dave Barry is brilliant," says Zevin and emphasizes that writing humor is painstaking. "In order to have a good humor book, it has to look like it took 10 minutes to write it. In order for it to look like like it took 10 minutes to write, it takes me 10 hours a day to write a paragraph."
	With radio, the return is more immediate, and Zevin hopes eventually to move his show to a commercial station. He traces his interest in radio back to childhood, when he used to listen to anything. "I used to listen to Dr. Ruth Westheimer when she was on for 15 minutes," he confesses. "I charted her fame." These days he's an avid listener of "Fresh Air" and Christopher Lydon's "The Connection." Zevin ends each of his radio interviews with a question he says was inspired by Barbara Walters' infamous "If you were a tree what kind of tree would you be?' For example, he asked the auto mechanic what kind of car he'd be ("A sleek, powerful Lamborghini."). I ask Zevin what kind of "everday person" he would be. "I would be one of those guys you find sitting at the counter of Dunkin Donuts drinking coffee and talking to his buddies all day long. That's the guy I'd be. You get to talk to people, drink coffee, eat donuts. What more could you ask for?"