Rachel Friedman developed some rather strange tics as a kid.

What was unusual about your first professional writing, which was published when you were only 23 years old?

My first published writing was the growing instructions on the back of flower seed packets. It was like writing tiny poems or haiku—every word mattered—it was instructions for life—the life of the seeds, and my own as well.

Can you make the sound of a wild snail eating?

I don’t think this sound can be made by a human. Some radio interviewers have asked me to try but how could I, with only 32 teeth, reproduce the sound of a snail’s 2,640 teeth? However, some scientist friends recorded the sound of a real snail eating and you can listen to the sound on my website.

Please explain what just happened.

I’m not really sure, nor do I care. But I think it had something to do with Dennis Lyxzén.

What is your earliest memory?

I remember being a baby of the barely walking variety. Something about camping and my mother bathing me in a green plastic washbasin on a campground table.

If you weren’t a composer/producer, what other profession would you choose?

Race car driver. Or perhaps freelance dictator. I hear that pays fairly well, but the occupational hazards are somewhat fatal depending upon involvement with US interests.

Angela Tung remembers the death of her grandmother and the year she couldn’t sleep.

JM Blaine riffs randomly on insomnia and four a.m. urges to snort Ambien in the desperate attempt to get a little sleep. Until his brain whispers this is what killed the Kings of Pop and Rock and Roll.

I’m a night person. I pull all-nighters. No, I don’t do speed (although I might as well). I simply hit an hour of no return and there I am watching the clock roll into the future. Bringing in the next day. Telling me I made one more. 2am. 4:30am. Usually, if I get to bed before [...]

My brain feels like one of those toys you have to push to make little bright objects bounce around in a clear dome over a loud grating noise.  Or a bingo dispenser, lots of stuff cluttering around and occasionally something comes out.  Or a garbage can at a rich person’s house or in a knick-knack [...]