George Saunders
Encyclopedia
George Saunders is a New York Times bestselling 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
, among other publications. He also contributed a weekly column, American Psyche, to the weekend magazine of The Guardian
’s Saturday edition until October, 2008. A professor at Syracuse University
, Saunders won the National Magazine Award
for fiction in 1994, 1996, 2000, and 2004, and second prize in the O. Henry Awards in 1997. His first story collection, CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, was a finalist for the 1996 PEN/Hemingway Award. In 2006 Saunders received a MacArthur Fellowship
. In 2007 he won the World Fantasy Award for his short story "CommComm". His story collection In Persuasion Nation was a finalist for The Story Prize
in 2007.
, and grew up on the south side of Chicago
. He is a graduate of Oak Forest High School
in Oak Forest, Illinois
, a southern suburb of Chicago. In 1981 Saunders received a B.S.
in geophysical engineering from Colorado School of Mines
in Golden, Colorado
. Speaking of his scientific background, Saunders said "...any claim I might make to originality in my fiction is really just the result of this odd background: basically, just me working inefficiently, with flawed tools, in a mode I don't have sufficient background to really understand. Like if you put a welder to designing dresses." In 1988, he obtained an M.A.
in creative writing from Syracuse University
.
in his twenties but is now repulsed by the philosophy, comparing it to neoconservative
thinking. From 1989 to 1996 he worked for Radian International, an environmental engineering firm in Rochester, New York
, as a technical writer and geophysical engineer. He also worked for a time in Sumatra
with an oil exploration crew. Since 1997, Saunders has been on the faculty of Syracuse University
, teaching creative writing in the school's MFA
program. In 2006, Saunders was awarded a $500,000 MacArthur Fellowship. In the same year he was also awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship
. Saunders resides in Syracuse, New York, is married and has two daughters. He was a Visiting Writer at Wesleyan University
and Hope College
in 2010, and participated in Wesleyan's Distinguished Writers Series and Hope's Visiting Writers Series. His most recent book, a collection of recent nonfiction titled The Braindead Megaphone, was published on September 4, 2007. While promoting The Braindead Megaphone, Saunders appeared on The Colbert Report and Late Night with David Letterman
.
Saunders's fiction often focuses on the absurdity of consumerism
and corporate culture and the role of the mass media. While many reviewers mention the satirical
tone in most of Saunders's writing, it also raises moral questions. The tragicomic element in his work has earned Saunders comparisons to Kurt Vonnegut
, a writer to whom Saunders has acknowledged a debt.
The film rights to CivilWarLand in Bad Decline were purchased by Ben Stiller
in the late 1990s and the project remains in development by Stiller's company, Red Hour Productions
. Saunders has also written a feature-length screenplay based on one of his stories, "Sea Oak".
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
of short stories, essays, novellas and children's books. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
, Harper's
Harper's Magazine
Harper's Magazine is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts, with a generally left-wing perspective. It is the second-oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. . The current editor is Ellen Rosenbush, who replaced Roger Hodge in January 2010...
, McSweeney's
McSweeney's
McSweeney's is an American publishing house founded by editor Dave Eggers.Apart from its book list, McSweeney's is responsible for four regular publications: the quarterly literary journal,...
and GQ
GQ (magazine)
GQ is a monthly men's magazine focusing on fashion, style, and culture for men, through articles on food, movies, fitness, sex, music, travel, sports, technology, and books...
, among other publications. He also contributed a weekly column, American Psyche, to the weekend magazine of The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
’s Saturday edition until October, 2008. A professor at Syracuse University
Syracuse University
Syracuse University is a private research university located in Syracuse, New York, United States. Its roots can be traced back to Genesee Wesleyan Seminary, founded by the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1832, which also later founded Genesee College...
, Saunders won the National Magazine Award
National Magazine Award
The National Magazine Awards are a series of US awards that honor excellence in the magazine industry. They are administered by the American Society of Magazine Editors and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York City...
for fiction in 1994, 1996, 2000, and 2004, and second prize in the O. Henry Awards in 1997. His first story collection, CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, was a finalist for the 1996 PEN/Hemingway Award. In 2006 Saunders received a MacArthur Fellowship
MacArthur Foundation
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is one of the largest private foundations in the United States. Based in Chicago but supporting non-profit organizations that work in 60 countries, MacArthur has awarded more than US$4 billion since its inception in 1978...
. In 2007 he won the World Fantasy Award for his short story "CommComm". His story collection In Persuasion Nation was a finalist for The Story Prize
Story Prize
The Story Prize is an annual book award established in 2004 that honors the author of an outstanding collection of short fiction with a $20,000 cash award. Each of two runners-up receives $5,000. Eligible books must be written in English and first published in the United States during a calendar...
in 2007.
Early life and education
Saunders was born in Amarillo, TexasAmarillo, Texas
Amarillo is the 14th-largest city, by population, in the state of Texas, the largest in the Texas Panhandle, and the seat of Potter County. A portion of the city extends into Randall County. The population was 190,695 at the 2010 census...
, and grew up on the south side of Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
. He is a graduate of Oak Forest High School
Oak Forest High School
Oak Forest High School is a public high school located in Oak Forest, Illinois. It is part of Bremen Community High School District 228 which also includes Tinley Park High School, Hillcrest High School and Bremen High School...
in Oak Forest, Illinois
Oak Forest, Illinois
Oak Forest is a suburban city about south/southwest of downtown Chicago in Bremen Township in Cook County, Illinois, United States. The population was 28,051 at the 2000 census.-History:...
, a southern suburb of Chicago. In 1981 Saunders received a B.S.
Bachelor of Science
A Bachelor of Science is an undergraduate academic degree awarded for completed courses that generally last three to five years .-Australia:In Australia, the BSc is a 3 year degree, offered from 1st year on...
in geophysical engineering from Colorado School of Mines
Colorado School of Mines
The Colorado School of Mines is a small public teaching and research university devoted to engineering and applied science, with special expertise in the development and stewardship of the Earth's natural resources. Located in Golden, Colorado, CSM was ranked 29th, in America among national...
in Golden, Colorado
Golden, Colorado
The City of Golden is a home rule municipality that is the county seat of Jefferson County, Colorado, United States. Golden lies along Clear Creek at the edge of the foothills of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. Founded during the Pike's Peak Gold Rush on 16 June 1859, the mining camp was...
. Speaking of his scientific background, Saunders said "...any claim I might make to originality in my fiction is really just the result of this odd background: basically, just me working inefficiently, with flawed tools, in a mode I don't have sufficient background to really understand. Like if you put a welder to designing dresses." In 1988, he obtained an M.A.
Master's degree
A master's is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice...
in creative writing from Syracuse University
Syracuse University
Syracuse University is a private research university located in Syracuse, New York, United States. Its roots can be traced back to Genesee Wesleyan Seminary, founded by the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1832, which also later founded Genesee College...
.
Career as author
Saunders considered himself an ObjectivistObjectivism (Ayn Rand)
Objectivism is a philosophy created by the Russian-American philosopher and novelist Ayn Rand . Objectivism holds that reality exists independent of consciousness, that human beings have direct contact with reality through sense perception, that one can attain objective knowledge from perception...
in his twenties but is now repulsed by the philosophy, comparing it to neoconservative
Neoconservatism
Neoconservatism in the United States is a branch of American conservatism. Since 2001, neoconservatism has been associated with democracy promotion, that is with assisting movements for democracy, in some cases by economic sanctions or military action....
thinking. From 1989 to 1996 he worked for Radian International, an environmental engineering firm in Rochester, New York
Rochester, New York
Rochester is a city in Monroe County, New York, south of Lake Ontario in the United States. Known as The World's Image Centre, it was also once known as The Flour City, and more recently as The Flower City...
, as a technical writer and geophysical engineer. He also worked for a time in Sumatra
Sumatra
Sumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the sixth largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 with a population of 50,365,538...
with an oil exploration crew. Since 1997, Saunders has been on the faculty of Syracuse University
Syracuse University
Syracuse University is a private research university located in Syracuse, New York, United States. Its roots can be traced back to Genesee Wesleyan Seminary, founded by the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1832, which also later founded Genesee College...
, teaching creative writing in the school's MFA
Master of Fine Arts
A Master of Fine Arts is a graduate degree typically requiring 2–3 years of postgraduate study beyond the bachelor's degree , although the term of study will vary by country or by university. The MFA is usually awarded in visual arts, creative writing, filmmaking, dance, or theatre/performing arts...
program. In 2006, Saunders was awarded a $500,000 MacArthur Fellowship. In the same year he was also awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...
. Saunders resides in Syracuse, New York, is married and has two daughters. He was a Visiting Writer at Wesleyan University
Wesleyan University
Wesleyan University is a private liberal arts college founded in 1831 and located in Middletown, Connecticut. According to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Wesleyan is the only Baccalaureate College in the nation that emphasizes undergraduate instruction in the arts and...
and Hope College
Hope College
Hope College is a medium-sized , private, residential liberal arts college located in downtown Holland, Michigan, a few miles from Lake Michigan. It was opened in 1851 as the Pioneer School by Dutch immigrants four years after the community was first settled...
in 2010, and participated in Wesleyan's Distinguished Writers Series and Hope's Visiting Writers Series. His most recent book, a collection of recent nonfiction titled The Braindead Megaphone, was published on September 4, 2007. While promoting The Braindead Megaphone, Saunders appeared on The Colbert Report and Late Night with David Letterman
Late Night with David Letterman
Late Night with David Letterman is a nightly hour-long comedy talk show on NBC that was created and hosted by David Letterman. It premiered in 1982 as the first incarnation of the Late Night franchise and went off the air in 1993, after Letterman left NBC and moved to Late Show on CBS. Late Night...
.
Saunders's fiction often focuses on the absurdity of consumerism
Consumerism
Consumerism is a social and economic order that is based on the systematic creation and fostering of a desire to purchase goods and services in ever greater amounts. The term is often associated with criticisms of consumption starting with Thorstein Veblen...
and corporate culture and the role of the mass media. While many reviewers mention the satirical
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
tone in most of Saunders's writing, it also raises moral questions. The tragicomic element in his work has earned Saunders comparisons to Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. was a 20th century American writer. His works such as Cat's Cradle , Slaughterhouse-Five and Breakfast of Champions blend satire, gallows humor and science fiction. He was known for his humanist beliefs and was honorary president of the American Humanist Association.-Early...
, a writer to whom Saunders has acknowledged a debt.
The film rights to CivilWarLand in Bad Decline were purchased by Ben Stiller
Ben Stiller
Benjamin Edward "Ben" Stiller is an American comedian, actor, writer, film director, and producer. He is the son of veteran comedians and actors Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara....
in the late 1990s and the project remains in development by Stiller's company, Red Hour Productions
Red Hour Productions
Red Hour Films is an American motion picture production and distribution company. Ben Stiller and producer Stuart Cornfeld run the company. The name was derived from an episode of Star Trek -- The Return of the Archons -- that features a scheduled, alien riot...
. Saunders has also written a feature-length screenplay based on one of his stories, "Sea Oak".
Fiction
- CivilWarLand in Bad DeclineCivilWarLand in Bad DeclineCivilWarLand in Bad Decline is short story writer George Saunders’s first full length short story collection, published in 1996; it is 192 pages long. The collection has many stories that appeared in different forms in Kenyon Review, Harper's, The New Yorker and Quarterly West...
(1996) (short storiesShort storyA short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...
and a novellaNovellaA novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...
) - PastoraliaPastoraliaPastoralia is short story writer George Saunders’s second full length short story collection, published in 2001; it is 208 pages long. The collection consists entirely of stories that appeared in The New Yorker. The majority of the stories in this collection were O. Henry Award Prize Stories...
(2000) (short stories and a novella) - The Very Persistent Gappers of FripThe Very Persistent Gappers of FripThe Very Persistent Gappers of Frip is short story writer George Saunders’s first children's book. -Plot summary:The village of Frip, consisting of three shacks by the sea, relies entirely on the production and sale of goat's milk. The gappers, an unintelligent lifeform shaped like a spiky fish,...
(2000) (novella with illustrations by Lane SmithLane Smith (illustrator)Lane Smith is an American children's book author and illustrator.-Background:Smith was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, but moved to Corona, California at a young age...
) (New York Times bestsellerBestsellerA bestseller is a book that is identified as extremely popular by its inclusion on lists of currently top selling titles that are based on publishing industry and book trade figures and published by newspapers, magazines, or bookstore chains. Some lists are broken down into classifications and...
) - The Brief and Frightening Reign of PhilThe Brief and Frightening Reign of PhilThe Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil is a novella by short story writer George Saunders; it is 130 pages long. The novella was written at Syracuse University, New York, where Saunders is a creative writing professor.-Plot:...
(2005) (novella) - In Persuasion NationIn Persuasion NationIn Persuasion Nation is short story writer George Saunders’s third full length short story collection; it is 240 pages long. The collection has many stories that appeared in different forms in The New Yorker, Harper's, Esquire, and McSweeney's...
(2006) (short stories)
Nonfiction
- A Bee Stung Me, So I Killed All the Fish (Notes from the Homeland 2003-2006) (2006) (promotional chapbookChapbookA chapbook is a pocket-sized booklet. The term chap-book was formalized by bibliophiles of the 19th century, as a variety of ephemera , popular or folk literature. It includes many kinds of printed material such as pamphlets, political and religious tracts, nursery rhymes, poetry, folk tales,...
of essayEssayAn essay is a piece of writing which is often written from an author's personal point of view. Essays can consist of a number of elements, including: literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. The definition...
s, limited to 500 copies to accompany the book In Persuasion NationIn Persuasion NationIn Persuasion Nation is short story writer George Saunders’s third full length short story collection; it is 240 pages long. The collection has many stories that appeared in different forms in The New Yorker, Harper's, Esquire, and McSweeney's...
) - The Braindead MegaphoneThe Braindead MegaphoneThe Braindead Megaphone is short story writer George Saunders’s first full length essay collection, published in 2007; it is 272 pages long. The collection has many essays that appeared in The New Yorker and GQ.-Contents:...
(2007) (collected essays)