Not many people can list their profession as "humorist," but one who can will be visiting the Quad-Cities later this week.

David Sedaris - whose National Public Radio essays gained him fame that continued with the books "Me Talk Pretty One Day," "Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim" and the most recent, last year's "When You Are Engulfed in Flames" - performs Thursday night at the Adler Theatre in downtown Davenport.

The 52-year-old Sedaris, whose appearance is being presented by Iowa Public Radio, was unavailable for a telephone interview.

In a Web chat earlier this year with the New Yorker magazine, Sedaris said he has written every day since he was 20 years old.

"At first I had to force myself. Then it became part of my identity and I did it without thinking," he said. "It helped to have jobs that involved running around, pushing things like dish carts and wheelbarrows. It would be hard to sit at a desk all day and then come to sit at another desk."

The thrice-Grammy-nominated Sedaris is in the middle of a multi-city tour, although he told Entertainment Weekly's Web site last year that he's not noticed offstage.

"Even if I appear in person, if I go to read in a theater, I can walk through the lobby and nobody knows it's me. I'm onstage far away and I'm not a big physical presence," he told EW.com. "I think when you're on the radio, too - I'm recognized by my voice more than anything else."