I recently took advantage of Gotham Writer’s annual Open House, and signed up for a session on fiction writing with author Susan Breen. It was excellent, but it’s not actually what I want to talk about today. During the course of the session, somebody asked about short fiction, and Breen recommended a book by George Saunders.
This was extremely exciting to me. I enjoy craft books, but many of those focused on fiction are focused on the novel. Then, I looked the book up and discovered that, as his models, he uses seven shorts stories by Chekhov, Gogol, Tolstoy, and Turgenev. My heart grew three sizes.
The book is A Swim in a Pond in the Rain and it is remarkable. I picked up both the electronic and audio addition. I enjoy listening to books and podcasts, but I must admit that I do sometimes find that I don’t absorb as much when listening. My mind sometimes wanders. That has not been the case with this book. That’s partly because I’ve been stopping and taking notes, but mostly because the content is so compelling.
Saunders taught the content that became this book at the graduate level at Syracuse University for 20 years. He may still be teaching it. I read all the stories before embarking on the book, but there’s no need. The book includes the full text, even of the novella by Tolstoy. In fact, I recommend not reading In the Cart (also called The Schoolmistress), by Chekhov, if you haven’t already, as Saunders does a page-by-page exercise with it. The audio version features professional actors reading each story.
As I said, I’ve been filling up my zettelkasten (a topic for another day) with notes, and will likely be posting at least some of them. Having to write something to post here helps me organize my thoughts.
I will just leave you with one quote. In the introduction, Saunders talks about how, at level the students admitted to the workshop are writing at, good writing is already assumed. He sees his role as helping them to write the stories that only they can write.
The goal is to help them develop the technical means to become defiantly and joyously themselves.
Defiantly and joyously themselves…
To me those are words to take to heart on the page and off.