Revisiting George Saunders
Topics discussed
Sponsor: LinkedIn Hiring Pro
Intro: Maternity leave and rerun announcement
Sponsor: Bombas socks
Welcome and introduction of George Saunders
Reflections on previous interview and Lincoln and the Bardo
Overview of 'A Swim in a Pond in the Rain'
Origin of the book and teaching experience
Value of the book for aspiring writers
Teaching strategy: Setting expectations for stories
Discussing stories that do not work
The magic of analyzing narrative machinery
Reading as a writer: Can you turn it off?
The reader and engineer in the mind
Approach to teaching: Let it fall on you
Writing as improvisation and response
Improv in the house and writing process
The blank mind phenomenon and blessing reactions
Reducing stress: Finding voice in process
Donald Westlake and knowing when a story ends
The Master Story and unpredictable endings
Escalation vs. stasis in storytelling
Discovering your voice: MFA and emulation
The bittersweet moment of finding your voice
Why imitation fails to reach personal depth
The hardest job: Doing what you can do
Hemingway Mountain vs. Saunders Mountain
Accepting your reality and personality
Is the voice a trap? Ongoing discovery
Clinging to success vs. exploring depths
Mapping talent and returning to earnestness
Art as a way to keep growing
Reading Russian literature without reading Russians
Feeling inadequate after reading great work
Committing to a difficult project
The book teaching itself how to be written
Naming your work: Never give them a title to use against you
Fiction, polemic, and the ice cream dollhouse
Writing in a political moment
Productivity and turning away from bogging questions
Stories formulate problems, they don't solve them
The Spuds story and political relevance
Reading outside your time and culture
Handling resistance to musty or sexist stories
Tolerance in teaching and judging stories
Aesthetic decisions vs. sloppy sexism in Chekhov
Causality in storytelling
The difficulty of teaching causality
Why the reading mind needs cause and effect
Understanding consequences and planning life
Improv and being present in real life
Dealing with immediate responses in improv
Believing what you wrote vs. planning ahead
Writing as play vs. slog
The importance of play in creative work
Play is not the work of a child
Responding to the moment in writing
Specific knowledge vs. general knowledge in books
Reading 'Darling' and analyzing micro-variations
Glenn Close and the audiobook of 'Darling'
Meeting Glenn Close on a pilot set
Glenn Close's spontaneous act of kindness
Conclusion: Value of the book and interview
Closing remarks and student advice
Sponsor: Saint Pete Clearwater tourism
Listen ad-free on Castria