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
life-is-short trying ifs
Life is short, very short, and what are we doing here if not trying to become more generous and loving?
trying stories firsts
As a writer I'm essentially just trying to impersonate a first-time reader, who picks up the story and has to decide, at every point, whether to keep going.
writing trying fiction
The one thing fiction and non-fiction writing have in common for me is that sense of trying to get the sentences to be minimal but at the same time be a little overfull - to encourage them to do a kind of poetic work.
character thinking trying
The writer has to make pleasure for the reader - which, I think, is done by taking one's character's seriously and taking one's readers seriously -don't condescend or try to be tricky. Be a friend to your reader - I'd say that's a pretty good first step.
giving feelings trying
There's also a way that you have of being precise but also allusive, that works well for me - it's something about the open-hearted way you frame your queries. Instead of feeling daunted or discouraged, I feel excited to give whatever it is a try. This takes a lot of editorial wisdom and confidence - to know just how to get the writer to take that extra chance.
crazy voice trying
In a sense my whole life as a writer is trying to find structural ways, or formal ways, to permit that outflowing so it doesn't just look like crazy output. In other words, if it turns out that you can do a given voice, that's just kind of inclination. But then if you can find a way to put that voice in a story so that the voice serves a purpose, then I would say that's being a writer.
trying ensemble different
It's one thing to be a perfectionist when you're alone, but when you're trying to make it work in an ensemble that's a whole different deal.
trying be-kind kind
In my case, when I am trying to be "kind" I often default in a sort of toothless loving-all stance that is, actually, not kind, because it is not truthful.
ideas trying stories
So for me the approach has become to go into a story not really sure of what I want to say, try to find some little seed crystal of interest, a sentence or an image or an idea, and as much as possible divest myself of any deep ideas about it. And then by this process of revision, mysteriously it starts to accrete meanings as you go.
age trying failing
We try, we fail, we posture, we aspire, we pontificate - and then we age, shrink, die, and vanish.
trying chance kind
I know that my only chance at any kind of depth or profundity is to linger within the story, trying to make it distinguish itself.
feelings perception trying
I've also found that trying to be active with social media changes my moment-to-moment perceptions. Instead of feeling, "What's the deepest version of what's happening here?" I start to feel, "How can I use [or "claim"] this?".
trying ends shots
If you at least try to do the things that excite you, it will make you a more expansive and present person - you’ll feel, at the end of your life, that at least you took the shot.
trying way process
I've seen time and time again the way that the process of trying to say something dignifies and improves a person.