--- title: Tom Hanks on His Short Story Collection Uncommon Type description: Tom Hanks' recently-published collection 'Uncommon Type' contains 17 short stories. He discussed making the move from acting to writing. canonical: https://time.com/5009167/tom-hanks-book-uncommon-type/ author: Kate Samuelson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-11-03T17:54:50.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:49:21.162Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: How Tom Hanks the Movie Star Became Tom Hanks the Writer og:description: The beloved actor just released his first collection of short stories og:url: https://time.com/5009167/tom-hanks-book-uncommon-type/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt849343f483d1a6c7/6988e482fb4eacb8598946c8/tom-hanks-southbank-centre-alice-boagey-9.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Tom-Hanks-Southbank-Centre-Alice-Boagey-9 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How Tom Hanks the Movie Star Became Tom Hanks the Writer twitter:description: The beloved actor just released his first collection of short stories twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt849343f483d1a6c7/6988e482fb4eacb8598946c8/tom-hanks-southbank-centre-alice-boagey-9.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How Tom Hanks the Movie Star Became Tom Hanks the Short Story Writer > Sponsored content. 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Tom Hanks in conversation with Gaby Wood at the Southbank Centre’s London Literature Festival.Alice Boagey by [Kate Samuelson](https://time.com/author/kate-samuelson/) ## Kate Samuelson Nov 3, 2017 5:54 PM UTC When you think of [Tom Hanks](http://time.com/4961915/tom-hanks-david-s-pumpkins-animated-special-saturday-night-live/), it’s likely his award-winning performances in _Forrest Gump_, _Big_ and _Cast Away_ come to mind first. Next, you might consider his soothingly familiar voice, particularly his vocal-work as Sheriff Woody in the _Toy Story_ films, a series adored by adults and kids alike. Finally, you might turn your thoughts to Hanks’ highly amusing Twitter presence, where he indulges in a childish love of trolling people, from the actor [Woody Harrelson](http://time.com/4713734/tom-hanks-woody-harrelson-twitter/) to [his own fans](http://time.com/4801590/tom-hanks-trolling-fans/). But now, the beloved movie star has yet another skill to add to the long list: his writing. Last month, Hanks’ first collection of short stories was published by Penguin Random House. The anthology, called _Uncommon Type_, contains 17 short stories on a variety of topics, from an Eastern European immigrant’s arrival in New York City to the tale of a woman adjusting to life after divorce. But how did Tom Hanks the movie star become Tom Hanks the short story writer? On Nov. 1, the two-time Academy Award winner took the stage at the Southbank Centre’s 2017 London Literature Festival to discuss making the move from the screen to the page. Here’s what we learned from his remarks. ## 1\. Nora Ephron inspired him to write Hanks said the American writer and filmmaker, with whom he worked on the 1993 romantic comedy _Sleepless in Seattle_, helped inspire him to write. “Nora always said, ‘Well, you wrote that.’ And I said, ‘I didn’t write that, that was just me complaining in a rehearsal!’ And she said ‘No, no, that’s what it is, that’s what writing is,'” he told the packed crowd. “She had always given me these writing props and bonafides. Everything we worked on together we approached from a writing perspective.” Years ago, Hanks sent Ephron a copy of an article he had written for the _New York Times._ “I sent it to Nora and she kept coming back to me with suggestions,” he said. “The biggest one was ‘voice, voice, voice.'” ## 2\. He isn’t a huge poetry fan Hanks said he wrote a short story called _Alan Bean Plus Four_, which was [published in the _New Yorker_](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/27/alan-bean-plus-four) in 2014\. In preparation for writing it, he read “two volumes of the best writing from the _New Yorker._ I read everything but the poetry. Forgive me.” ## 3\. But he’s big on non-fiction Hanks said he reads a lot of non-fiction and loves reading the work of Bill Bryson, whose books include _A Walk in the Woods_ and _A Short History of Nearly Everything_. “Bill Bryson could write about forks,” he joked. “He could write about a chimney and I’m there.” Hanks’ other favorite non-fiction authors include Anna Funder (“she’s one of the first writers I wrote a fan letter to”), William Manchester (“a marvelous historian”) and Chaim Potuk (“he wrote about people who were so far removed from me but I recognized everything they went through”).  Tom Hanks at the Southbank Centre’s London Literature Festival. Alice Boagey ## 4\. He owns more than 150 typewriters (but didn’t write his short stories on them) Hanks, who was recently featured in the documentary [_California Typewriter_](http://time.com/4913685/doug-nichol-typewriter-documentary/), is a typewriter fanatic. He claims to own around 150 to 160 of them, collected from all over the world. But he admitted that he would like to work the number down to 20\. “I don’t want to be buried with my typewriters. I don’t know how many cemeteries can hold 140 typewriters.” “Collecting typewriters is a lot cheaper than collecting cars… or pianos,” he said. “Guitars are nice to collect. You can hang them on the wall, but if you don’t play the guitar, what’s the f-cking point?” he added, to much laughter and applause. The actor explained that it is the “permanence” of what you can create with a typewriter that appeals to him, “even if you’re just writing ‘avocados’.” He writes all his shopping lists, memos and reminders on a typewriter, but only wrote a few pages of one of his short stories on one. “After about four and a half, five pages it was such a disaster I had to give up.” Typewriters appear “like an Easter egg” in every story in _Uncommon Type_. “I was looking for some sort of device to spur each story in my head when I sat down to do it,” he said. “It actually was a marvelous tool in order to get into the work.” ## 5\. There’s one book he really wishes he had written Hanks said the one book he wishes he had written — “had I had the talent to do so” — is _A World Lit Only by Fire_ by William Manchester. “It is fascinating, you learn so much, not just about the dark ages but all this stuff that puts it into purely human terms that has no nostalgia for the era, but is about literally \[about\] people’s… day to day existence.” ## 6\. His favorite library is no surprise “There’s a reading room at the New York City Public Library that is just — quite frankly, it’s so beautiful you can’t do any reading there,” he joked. “It’s just absolutely gorgeous. There’s something magnificent \[about sitting\] around, surrounded by all that scholarliness.” ## 7\. The idea for most of the stories in his collection began with the title Hanks told the crowd that most of the short stories in _Common Type_ began with the title. “I’d try and find a little bit of prose poetry of what the title would be and have that spur me on,” he explained. ## 8\. He lied about having read _Moby Dick_ for a very long time “Have you read _Moby Dick_?” Hanks sheepishly asked Gaby Wood, the journalist interviewing him. “It took me forever to read _Moby Dick_,” he continued. “I was one of those guys who pretended I had read _Moby Dick_… I didn’t read it until I was like 50 years old.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5009167/tom-hanks-book-uncommon-type/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5009167/tom-hanks-book-uncommon-type/"},"headline":"How Tom Hanks the Movie Star Became Tom Hanks the Short Story Writer","datePublished":"2017-11-03T17:54:50.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:49:21.162Z","description":"How the much-loved movie star made the move from actor to writer","url":"https://time.com/5009167/tom-hanks-book-uncommon-type/","keywords":["Books"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt849343f483d1a6c7/6988e482fb4eacb8598946c8/tom-hanks-southbank-centre-alice-boagey-9.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Kate Samuelson","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/kate-samuelson/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt849343f483d1a6c7/6988e482fb4eacb8598946c8/tom-hanks-southbank-centre-alice-boagey-9.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Tom-Hanks-Southbank-Centre-Alice-Boagey-9","caption":"Tom Hanks in conversation with Gaby Wood at the Southbank Centre’s London Literature Festival.","creditText":"Alice Boagey","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/books/","name":"Books"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5009167/tom-hanks-book-uncommon-type/","name":"How Tom Hanks the Movie Star Became Tom Hanks the Short Story Writer"}}]}] ```