George Saunders
George Saunders
George Saundersis an American writer of short stories, essays, novellas and children's books. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's, McSweeney's and GQ. He also contributed a weekly column, American Psyche, to the weekend magazine of The Guardian until October 2008...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth2 December 1958
CityAmarillo, TX
CountryUnited States of America
firsts speak
...smile first, then speak.
writing interesting political
Writing a story I am just trying to find some little interesting thing to start out with: something small, even trivial. Preferably something that doesn't have a lot of thematic or political baggage - a little crumb that is interesting.
higher-ground luck needs
If a writer understands his work as something that originates with him but then, with any luck, gets away from him, then what he needs is someone who can grasp the potential of the piece and lead him to that higher ground.
nice writing feelings
There's a really nice moment in the life of a piece of writing where the writer starts to get a feeling of it outgrowing him - or he starts to see it having a life of its own that doesn't have anything to do with his ego or his desire to 'be a good writer.
advice littles corny
So here's something I know to be true, although it's a little corny, and I don't quite know what to do with it:
writing ideas trying
My idea about collections is that you write as hard as you can for some period and what you're really doing during that time is hyper-focusing on the individual pieces - trying to make each one sit up and really do some surprising work.
actors never-quit process
I'm fascinated with actors, and I've never quite understood the process.
stories world want
When you read a short story, you come out a little more aware and a little more in love with the world around you. What I want is to have the reader come out just 6 percent more awake to the world.
eye writing trying
With non-fiction writing I feel like I'm confined and driven by what actually happened. That makes the "plot". So it's a process of getting all of my notes typed up, then scanning through the notes, trying to extract or find certain vignettes that seem like they might write well - that might have a potential for good energy, shape, etc. And then at some point I start stringing these together, keeping an eye on the word count.
order trying language
The writer, in order to proceed, is theoretically trying to predict where his complex skein of language and image has left his reader, who he has likely never met and who is actually thousands of readers.
kindness collaboration
Err in the direction of kindness.
couple years numbers
The number of rooms in a fictional house should be inversely proportional to the years during which the couple living in that house enjoyed true happiness.
mecca world bigs
It's a big world, and I really like it.
heart empathy my-heart
My heart goes out to him. Sort of. Because empathy depends on how you've spent your day.