Ellie Kemper killed it as the new receptionist, Erin, at the end of this season of The Office. But did you know - she’s also an accomplished improviser, and a published comedy writer? Here’s a piece she wrote for McSweeney’s back in 2006.
I write today to defend myself against a literary offense of the highest degree: plagiarism.
In 1983, a 24-year-old Guatemalan Indian and human-rights activist named Rigoberta Menchu took part in a series of interviews with a Venezuelan-French woman whose name I cannot remember. The taped interviews were transcribed and I, Rigoberta Menchu was published. Menchu would later go on to receive the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize for her work on behalf of indigenous peoples. Her memoir is, quite simply, the tale of a luckless woman living under an abusive military dictatorship.
And if I might ask: is this really so different from my own story?
