Just His Type

Calvin Trillin’s writing is by turns insightful, warm and funny, no matter what mode it takes--journalism, novel, commentary, verse, monologue, biography or autobiography. A staff writer for the New Yorker since 1963, Trillin spent 15 of those years writing U.S. Journal, a series of stories that appeared from around the country.

His many books include “Alice, Let’s Eat” (Alice is his wife), which chronicles his restaurant adventures, and “Deadline Poet: My Life as a Doggerelist,” a volume of his verse, which regularly appears in the Nation magazine. His more serious side came out in “Remembering Denny,” a book about a fellow student at Yale who seemed destined for greatness but ended up almost in obscurity before taking his own life.

Trillin, 65, lives in New York and in a fishing village in Nova Scotia. His next novel, “Tepper Isn’t Going Out,” will be published in January.

DESKTOP: I have had a computer since 1985. Whenever I need a new one I have a little consultation with my computer mavens and they tell me what to buy. The one I have now I use in New York and then bring to Nova Scotia for the summer.

I hate to say this, but I don’t know what kind it is.

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Q. Don’t you look at it every time you sit down at the computer?

It’s on the floor. For my birthday last year my wife bought me a present that was installed while I was a panelist on a cruise sponsored by the Nation. We call it the “lefties at sea” cruise. When I got home I found that she had gotten one of those flat screens and had it installed on my computer. It’s beautiful.

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Q. Do you remember what computer you got in 1985?

Yes. It was a Leading Edge. I had just started to do a column for a newspaper syndicate, and I used it for that, but not for longer pieces like the New Yorker stories.

For those, I would write a draft on the computer, print it out and then start all over from the beginning. It was like the way I used a typewriter. In other words, I didn’t edit on the machine. That was true for years.

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Q. But it seems like computers were born for quick editing.

I had been typing since I was in the eighth grade. I grew up in Kansas City, which was always a little ahead of its time. Now it’s common for schools to close when they run out of money, but in Kansas City they were doing it back then. A bond didn’t pass, so the schools closed in April.

My father was of the belief that children should not be out of school that early, and he thought that typing was very important. So he sent my sister and I to a secretarial school. I was made to type 45 minutes a day for the rest of the summer so I wouldn’t lose it.

It got to the point, when I became a writer, where I had to type something to think it out. Even if I had to write something that should be in longhand--like a note to a hostess--I had to type it first and then copy it over.

By the time I got a computer, I had been writing pieces for the New Yorker for more than 20 years, and I had gotten into a routine. First the rough draft and then what we called the yellow draft. It was a sort of a ritual.

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Q. Did you ever get to the point where you could compose and edit on the computer?

Oh, yes, but it was gradual. I’m sure it started with the lighter pieces, something fun. Maybe about eating.

I still use Word Perfect, which is sort of like having a six-digit calculator. But I’m used to it. I remember when Word Perfect 6 came out and people said it would help me go faster. Well, I was going about as fast as I needed to go. Later, it turned out that Word Perfect made you go slower.

I’m not sure, but I think maybe I still use it in DOS.

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Q. You don’t have Windows installed?

It says “Windows” when I turn on the machine, so maybe I do.

LAPTOP: My wife has one. I borrow it sometimes when I have to go somewhere to do a story.

BOOKMARKED SITES: My daughters call me “Net boy” because I use the Internet so much, especially up here [in Nova Scotia]. It’s a fantastic tool for researching material for a column, or even if I am going to do a takeoff on an old song for a poem and need to look up the exact lyrics.

I probably have 50 sites bookmarked. In search engines I have Yahoo and Google. For newspapers, we can finally get the New York Times here a couple of days, late, but in the mornings. I sometimes look at it and the Washington Post. I also have CNN marked, and Slate and Salon.

There is a site you can use to look up how much anyone has given to a political candidate [https://www.opensecrets.org]. As a snoopy person, I love that thing.

I have had fantastic experiences with rare-book sites. The Mid-Manhattan Library has a room where they sell old books. Once I saw a wonderful book there about American immigrant cultures that listed every immigrant community. It was only $2, so I bought it, of course. But that was Volume 1 of a two-volume set. I went looking on the Internet and found Volume 2 in Australia. A couple of weeks later I had it.

CELL PHONE: My wife has one. I take it when I go out on the boat. I guess if I get stuck on some island and can’t get the motor started, I can call her and say, “Help!”

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As told to DAVID COLKER

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Check out past columns at www.latimes.com/celebsetup