George Saunders Joins the Writer’s Symposium By The Sea

George Saunders may be the most beloved short story writer in the country. His short stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Atlantic, Harper’s McSweeney’s, andGQ. His 2017 novel Lincoln in the Bardo also won the Booker Prize and his new novel Vigil is destined to be a bestseller.

He’s also known for his ability to describe how a story works, why it does, and what to look for as a writer and a reader. Sanders’ skill as a storyteller and wildly funny human will be on full display on February 27 at the 31st annual Writer’s Symposium By The Sea at Point Loma Nazarene University.

We caught up with him ahead of the event to ask him five questions. Read his Q&A below:

January 17, 2023

SD Author's New Book Questions the Shadows We WearRELATED ARTICLE

You have worked in a slaughterhouse, in oil fields, in the classroom, and at your writing desk. How do those rate on a scale of difficulty?

Well, on one hand, writing is the easiest, just because I love it and it matters to me. So even if it’s “difficult,” it’s not “hard.” There’s nothing I’d rather be doing. Writing certainly takes more care and it is very hard, in the sense that the writer is trying to do something only he can do. 

What made those other, more physical, jobs hard for me was that my heart wasn’t necessarily in them. Teaching is something else altogether, more in the writing category: a labor of love that, when I’m doing it, I feel really good and vital and alive.

In addition to being known for your great writing, you are also known for your kindness and humor. Were you always kind and funny, or is that a late onset thing?

Well, I was always pretty funny, or tried to be. The first girlfriend I ever had broke up with me because I “was always joking.” To which, I made a joke. I like and trust humor as a sort of an easing tool out in the world. The kindness thing, I don’t know. I wrote a speech that said: 

“Kindness is important and I wish to God I was better at it,” which then somehow got me branded as “The Kindness Guy.” I am still working on getting better at that skill and have found that, if you take it seriously, it encompasses everything.

You have said that writers bear witness to the world. Why does that matter?

I think a good writer can serve as a sort of God-surrogate, in the sense that he or she is trying to give us the ultimate view of things. They are always, of course, wrong. But they give us somewhere to start from, and something to push off of, as we try to address the question of what we’re doing here and how we should go through this life.

December 18, 2025

San Diego Magazine Launches Here We Are Creative StudioRELATED ARTICLE

Many of your stories deal with some aspect of the afterlife. Do you think about this a lot?

Well, I do feel that death is something I’m very much aware of, yes. Life is kind of like this wonderful party, with the condition that, at some point (and nobody knows when) the host is going to slip up to you and say, “Time to go.”  This awareness makes everything beautiful. In my books, I find that building this idea into the story (death is real, death is coming) makes for a bigger and more truthful picture, somehow.

Have you ever been to San Diego? If so, what did you like to do here? If not, what do you want to do while you’re here?

I have. I wrote a piece called The Great Divider, for GQ about the border. I drove from Brownsville, Texas to San Diego and my last stop was that place where the border runs off into the ocean. That’s the last scene in the story. I just remember sitting at a restaurant by the ocean, so exhausted and exhilarated from that big, confusing, mind-expanding trip. I’m looking forward to coming back.

In addition to Saunders at the Writer’s Symposium are Jamaica Kincaid on Feb. 26 and Judy Woodruff Feb. 25.

The post George Saunders Joins the Writer’s Symposium By The Sea appeared first on San Diego Magazine.