On the day of author Augusten Burroughs’ lecture at the Savannah College of Art and Design-Atlanta, one of the organizers fretted about possibly having too many chairs in The Hub, thinking students might be too busy with final projects to attend. She needn’t have worried: SCAD and Atlanta community members came out in droves to hear the Feb. 21 lecture by the famous author of the memoirs "Running With Scissors" and "Dry," the essay collections "Magical Thinking: True Stories" and "Possible Side Effects," and the novel "Sellevision" — resulting in a standing-room only crowd.

Burroughs' name has long been well-known in literary circles. "Running With Scissors" has remained on the New York Times bestseller list for more than two years. Burroughs has written for magazines and newspapers such as the New York Times, House and Garden, New York Magazine and Details, and was a regular commentator for NPR’s Morning Edition. In March 2003, he was listed as No. 15 on Entertainment Weekly’s annual list of the 25 Funniest People in America.

Author Augusten Burroughs prepares to speak at SCAD-Atlanta as part of the college’s Writer Series. The next speaker in the series is Walter Mosley, April 10, 7:30 p.m.

In 2006, "Running with Scissors" was adapted into a movie of the same name directed by Ryan Murphy and starring Annette Bening, Alec Baldwin, Jill Clayburgh, Joseph Fiennes, Gwyneth Paltrow and Evan Rachel Wood. (A film version of "Sellevision" is in pre-production.)

Surprisingly, the movie of his life registers barely a blip on his radar. "I would never mention it if I weren't asked about it all the time," he said.

For legal reasons, he also is reluctant to mention the lawsuit filed by the family he lived with for many years, except to say that the memoir is all true. "People are going to believe what they believe [about it]," he said. "['Running with Scissors' is a] souvenir from my childhood."

Addressing the concept of memoirs in general, and the fact that he has written two plus a collection of essays, Burroughs said, "It's odd because I have never wanted a life made out of 'material,' but that is exactly what I've had … but I don’t write about everything."

Burroughs officially began writing rather late in life. He got into advertising at the early age of 19 and worked his way into alcoholism. He went into rehab at the age of 30, then relapsed.

"I developed features common to late-stage alcoholics, so I knew I was going to die," he said. "But I was OK with that because I had had a huge life. I didn’t feel gypped. It had been an ugly life, but it had been big. The pebble in my shoe was when I thought, 'Well, you never even tried to write.' I never even tried … A couple weeks after that, I sat down and wrote what became 'Sellevision.'"

Now that his life is an open book, literally, it is fair to assume he meets his share of disturbing fans — but he said that isn’t true.

"People who read, I think — at least in my experience — they seem pretty smart and they seem pretty engaged. When people come up to me, they know they already know everything about me and I don’t know anything about them ... They know that that would be weird, and they make it not weird," he said. "The vast majority are great. I think, ‘I’d like to be friends with this person.’ It is overwhelming."

Burroughs said it was "really cool" the first time he saw a stack of his books at a bookstore. But he never really considered what it could mean to readers. "That has turned out to be the most amazing thing," he said. "A writer in California can control the tear ducts of a reader in Vermont." Now, he said, that connection is the aspect of being a writer that he enjoys the most, and for which he would like to be remembered.

"I guess I would probably most like to be remembered for making people feel more comfortable facing their addictions and their miseries and not feeling alone," he said. "That is the one thing I have felt all my life … that dreadful hollow echoing alone, so I know that feeling well."

Along those lines, Burroughs used his bumper-sticker phrase of the day in SCAD-Atlanta professor Emily Williams' Composition and Literature class, which he addressed prior to the lecture: Reading is "as intimate as you can be with another person with your clothes on."

To that end, he encouraged students to try their best to make that connection in their writing. "Transfer 'you' into someone else's head," he said. "Be able to write what you think and feel so that the reader has it in their head."

He advised the students, "Polish your ability to shut up and listen and capture your experience. The key to establishing a voice is being yourself. Everything has been done but you haven’t done it … Try to be new. Ultimately, the only way to be new is to be you."

Article by Beth E. Concepción, Chronicle editor. Photo by Freddie Bennett.