Nine essays and interviews from literature’s favorite laureate of compassion.
George Saunders
Posted inEditor's Pick
George Saunders Says Ditching These Three Delusions Can Save You
“He’s as flawed a human being as anyone else, one who’s still wrestling with questions about how best to move through life with a modicum of grace and compassion.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
George Saunders on Writing
“The short story, I’m learning, can do anything.”
Posted inQuotes
The Unlikely Hero in George Saunders’ Short Story, ‘The Falls’
And he “…stopped in his tracks, wondering what in the world two little girls were doing alone in a canoe speeding toward the Falls, apparently oarless.”
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Nonfiction, Quotes
How a Story Becomes a ‘Hopeful Thing’: George Saunders on His Writing Process
At the Guardian, the author recounts how it takes “hundreds of drafts” and “thousands of incremental adjustments” to form a story into a “hopeful thing.”
Posted inNonfiction, Top 5
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, we’re sharing stories by Sam Knight, Rick Perlstein, Ijeoma Oluo, Keziah Weir, and George Saunders.
Posted inEditor's Pick
George Saunders: What Writers Really Do When They Write
George Saunders reflects on his writing process, suggesting that the magical, romantic notion where fully formed art leaps from the author’s brain on to the page does the writer, the reader, and the work a disservice. In reality, it takes “hundreds of drafts” and “thousands of incremental adjustments” to form a story into a “hopeful […]
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Profiles & Interviews, Quotes
A ‘Constellation of Meaning’: The Rumpus Interviews George Saunders
In addition to offering plenty of great advice for aspiring writers, George Saunders reflects on the creative process for his new novel, the interviews, notes, and scenes that once distilled become his nonfiction work, and on bold compassion as the right course of resistance under a Trump presidency.
Posted inNonfiction
The Anton Chekhov-George Saunders Humanity Kit: An Introduction
A little over three years ago I asked George Saunders whether I could sit in on one of his MFA classes at Syracuse, and, flabbergastingly, he said okay.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
George Saunders on How We Deal with Anxiety
I’m interested in the way that Americans — well, probably people in general — tend to address their anxiety with yap. I know I do. This tendency to lack the self-confidence to simply not do anything — to refrain, to be silent, not react, not shoot, just stay out of the shit — that seems […]