Alie Ward

So prep your flesh for figuring out how to write a book, getting to fourth base in a lab.

Organs from Critters, How to Find the Best Nuggets of a Conversation, Bugs on Drugs, Bendable Genitals, Elective Amputation, Gene-Tweaked Pigs, Vacuum Chambers, Beating Hearts, Leftover Tendons, and so much more with replaceable you author, science communicator, lauded journalist, my personal career hero, I like them so much it's embarrassing, the icon and writer on human technomorphology, Mary Roach.

And Mary Roach, an icon, a legend.

I've read all of your books, including I got an advanced copy of a book coming out.

Your book will come out the day this is released.

And when it comes to your books, does the name come first?

Does the subject come first?

Do you have leftover pieces from another book that you realize all fit into a new book?

How did you decide on the topic?

Probably, hopefully.

Although it's a dream come true for certain people, I'm sure.

Did she write about this for Vogue?

No.

Could she get it out of her mind?

Of course not.

What was your Kohler faucet for Replaceable You?

This was in the nation of Georgia near Turkey in Armenia.

And in Replaceable You, Mary notes that instead of commercial penile implants supporting the rigidity, it's the patient's middle finger and that the digit is skinned but otherwise implanted whole.

And Mary continues describing a sort of skin log lying in a small surgical basin.

And she wistfully notes, quote, I'm reminded of a Vienna sausage.