Wits at the Fitzgerald Theater, St. Paul, MN. Hard Work and For What?, Thursday, April 29 - 8 p.m. with phone guests Chuck Klosterman and Amy Sedaris; musical guest Mike Doughty

May 5-7 Ohio U Writing Fest

Sept 16 SLU / 5K

PAST EVENTS 2010

Mon Feb 1 Pen Faulkner Event

Mon Feb 22 Boston College

Tues Feb 23 UMASS – One Book

Wed Feb 24 Wesleyan - 4:30 with students then 8 PM reading

Wed March 3 Rosenberry Conference - Greeley CO

Wed-Fri, March 17-19 Penn State Univ

Fri April 9 AWP in Denver – featured reading with Etgar Keret

Mon April 12 Hope College - Michigan

Tue-Thurs April 13-15 Northwestern U - Chicago

*****

To book George Saunders, please contact:

Alison Granucci

Blue Flower Arts

PO Box 1361

Millbrook, New York 12545

Email: alison@blueflowerarts.com

Phone: 845 677 8559

Website: www.blueflowerarts.com

OTHER NEWS:

Hi everyone,

Just a quick note of update, after a long silence…

Last April I went out and lived, semi-incognito, in a homeless tent city in Fresno, California. I spent most of the summer writing up an account of this, which will appear in the September issue of GQ Magazine. It was a very moving, sort of scary experience, that had the effect of re-energizing certain tendencies in my fiction and in me as a person, I guess, among these: respect for the real; a distrust of the American capitalist juggernaut; suspicion of my own Pollyannaish tendencies; new enthusiasm for the variety and weirdness of the world. Right now I’m working on a longer version of this piece. The GQ piece is pretty long – around 12,000 words – but at one point my draft of it was up to 250 pages. So many great stories and voices. So I hope I can bring the book together and that it captures even a fraction of the power of the actual trip.

Earlier in the summer I received a much-appreciated award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and went to NY for a very wonderful ceremony. Then, in July, I went to Italy for my first time ever. The Italian translation of “The Braindead Megaphone” had just come out. So I did some events in Rome and then went to the Capri Festival, which was a riot. Such a beautiful place. I felt – as I always feel in beautiful places – a little like I didn’t deserve quite so much beauty, and was kind of mucking up the beauty, ruining it for everyone else – but I stayed the course, and had a great time. Even took a walk up to the ruins of Tiberius’s villa, where he was rumored to have indulged in all kinds of sexual romps, but found nothing much sexual going on, just some frogs and butterflies and what-not flitting around some ancient columns, and in the distance a vast blue sea that must have been pretty fun to look at while engaging in sexual romps, back in the day, if you were Tiberius, and not one of the peasants he was forcibly en-romping. The whole Italian trip was magical…so thanks to everyone at MinimumFax and to the Capri Festival. It was especially nice to have my first Italian trip take place when I am already so old. That way, I could be a complete touristic fool and not have to feel bad or un-hip about it. Just picture me gaping in awe, having such original thoughts as, “Wow, this sidewalk was here in Christ’s time,” while looking wistfully at all the young Italians making out, and also, I am eating a gelato, sometimes while also drinking a Peroni. The land of “no pride” is a very comfortable place to be.

Am working on some new fiction, as usual. There’ll be a new story, called “Victory Lap,” in The New Yorker sometime this fall, and I have a short memoir piece in Granta, called “The View from the South Side, 1970,” also out in September; this is an all-Chicago edition, with some great contributors and a killer cover by Chris Ware. I also wrote an essay for an anthology being edited by Steve Almond, which will be a collection of outtakes from published stories, along with essays by the writers on why they cut the bit.

On the reading front, I’ve been prepping for a course I’m teaching at Syracuse in the fall. It’s a course focusing on Gogol, Tolstoy, Chekhov, and Babel. So that’s been a treat. We’ve got an especially great new class coming in, and so I’m looking forward to meeting them next week.

I recently read Joshua Ferris’s new book, “The Unnamed,” in galleys, and found it wonderful: very deep and compelling. Joshua was nice enough to read my story “ Adams ” for The New Yorker podcast. Next up are galleys from Jonathan Lethem (“Chronic City”) and Maile Chapman (“Your Presence is Requested at Suvanto”) and am also hoping to get to Tom McCarthy’s “Remainder” this summer, as well as “Netherlands.” This may be wishful thinking, as the summer is flying past...but there’s always fall.

And speaking of fall, here are some upcoming readings and events (the dates are approximately right…best to doublecheck for exact dates/times/places):

Sept 19: Reading in Corpus Christi, Texas.

Oct 16-18: New Yorker Fest. I’ll be doing a reading on Friday and two events on Sunday: a fiction panel and then the big humor reading.

Oct 23-24: Reading at Concordia, in Montreal.

Nov 9: Reading at Bryn Mawr.

Nov 16: Reading at Chester College .

And then there are a bunch more readings in the spring.

So things are, as usual, pretty busy and rich. And, as always, I appreciate your interest in my work, and wish you all a happy and productive fall…

George

NOTE: This is NOT GEORGE'S EMAIL ADDRESS!!! Please do not write to George via my email address. If you want to contact George, write to him at

Syracuse University

English Dept.

Syracuse, NY 13244.

Thanks!

This fansite was created in October 2002 and is maintained by Carol Magary Carpenter, an admirer of George Saunders' work. I am fortunate enough to have Mr. Saunders' blessing on this site, but I am responsible for its content.

Main logo photo by Caitlin Saunders.

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