The first time you meet Matthew Weiner, you can’t help thinking about certain images, certain scenes that feel like a dream or a memory: love and nylon; John Hamm’s La Joconde smile; Peggy Olson’s mythical, lean in-style walk into a new, hard-won job; sunglasses and a Mondrian dress;  a Californian hippie Coke ad. This guy is one of the handful of writers credited with bringing literature to the television screen.

At the annual Book Expo America in New York, the Mad Men creator took a moment to chat with LSP about his literary renaissance, Steinbeck and Dickens, and about how writing a novel liberated him.