Saved by Keely Adler
Art vs. Commerce
There Was Some Essential “Me-Ness” In It
For years, the writer George Saunders tried to write technically perfect stories. “I wrote story after story,” Saunders writes in A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, “and everything I wrote was minimal and strict and efficient and lifeless and humor-free, even though, in real life, I reflexively turned to humor at
... See moreI tell my students to liberate a certain part of their mind that, because they are good, humble people they may have likely suppressed, and that's the part that wants to be known, that wants to be famous or rich or whatever. I say that part is not entirely separate from the part of you that wants to be a great writer. Which is not separate from the... See more
Jane Ratcliffe • Craft Advice from George Saunders
From George Saunders, on nuance and embracing complexity:
... See morethe writer doesn't have to have a fixed firm idea, but has to be able to take the reader on a journey to remind her that the world is complicated. From the very beginning, I understood writing to be about some kind of moral or ethical imperative. Absent that, I'm not that interested in it,