Zachary Lazar

Transcription

[ Background Conversation ] >> Good morning everyone. Buenos dias. I'm Bea Gonzales, Dean of the University College and one of this year's co-chairs of Orange Central. And I am excited, thrilled beyond belief to welcome all of you to one of our very special Orange Central events. The conversation with acclaimed author George Saunders. Aren't you as excited as I am? George has appeared in print. Been featured on television. Has gone viral in social media, all because of his magical and inspiring use of words and the effect they have on us. He is the author of several short story collections, including CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, Pastoralia, In Persuasion Nation, and most recently, Tenth of December, which has spent 15 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list and has earned George a place as a finalist in this year's National Book Awards. He has been recognized time and again for his writings. Most notably in 2006, he was named a MacArthur Fellow and a Guggenheim Fellow. In 2013 he received his PEN/Malamund Award for excellence in the short story and was called out by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Doesn't that deserve like? And his speech at the College of Arts and Sciences for complication this past spring in which he described his own failures of kindness has made him a household name. And he went viral. How many of you have gone viral? Again, right. We're honored to call him one of our own. A graduate of Syracuse University and an esteemed faculty member in our renowned creative writing department. Joining George today we're delighted to welcome a fellow author and Associate Professor in SU's creative writing department, Dana Spiotta. Dana is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Rome Prize. Now before we welcome George and Dana to the stage, I have just a couple of housekeeping items. First, let's silence our cellphones and any other thing that beeps or makes noise. And secondly, at the end of the session this morning, we'll have some time for questions from the audience. But because Dana has to do something that's critical to the mission of this institution, she has to teach this morning, she will not be here for the question and answers. But George I will do my best. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Alright. So without further ado, please join me in a warm and proud applause as we welcome George Saunders and Dana Spiotta. >> Thank you all for coming this morning. And I think I am going to be here for the Q&A. Just, I just have to leave at 10:30. >> [Inaudible]. >> Yes and thank you for asking, thank you to the [inaudible] for asking me to interview George. It's always a great pleasure, and I always learn a lot when I talk to George. George graduated from the Syracuse MFA Program. So, how would, tell me about your background and how you came to be at the MFA Program and then what it did for you as a writer, and as a person I'm sure. >> Well I was, and my undergrad degree was from the School of Mines in Colorado, so I was a, had a geophysics degree, and kind of limped through that, you know, in nine and a half years or something. And, got out with a, you know, 2 5 or something barely. And then went to work in Asia. And then it was kind of there, I got sick. And also got kind of the, I kind of realized I wanted to be a writer when I was in Asia. And came home and kind of hitchhiked around and kind of just gradually let my degree expire. You know, so when I went back to work, [inaudible] and your degree was kind of worthless. And so actually I was sort of, honestly, in a bit of a downward spiral. I was working as a grounds man in Amarillo, Texas. Kind of wanted to write, but I only knew one other writer who had published one story in a small magazine. So I really didn't get how you did it exactly. >> And your family is not a necessarily a literary, I mean they weren't writers, people. >> No, no writers in the family. >> Right. >> And also my Dad had just lost his business actually. He had a pizza restaurant that burned down. So we were all kind of in an unstable situation. And so I was at a really wild party that I won't, I won't elaborate to why, but it was a crazy party. And, for Amarillo pretty crazy. There as alcohol. It was nuts. But, in that party, I was kind of, I'm sort of a shy person, so I drifted away from the party. And there was a People magazine. And I read it. And it had an article about Syracuse. About Jay Mclnerney and Raymond Carver. There's a picture of them kind of standing chummily in some snow or something. And, so I just didn't know you could get paid to, to write, you know. So I applied and got a call from Tobias Wolff two or three months or whatever later that was just life changing. And I, you know, with this weekend and the [inaudible] and all that, I was thinking about it. And it occurred to me that, you know, we all have kind of like shadow lives. You know, the lives that we would have led if something good, or I suppose bad, but in my case if not for this intervention, I could sort of see that within probably six months I would have had to find something to fasten my attention on. Whether it was a relationship or taking some job seriously or something. >> Bank robbery. >> Bank robbery was a possibility, but yeah. So it was such a crazy blessing that I know Syracuse confers on people all the time, which is to take somebody with some potential who hasn't yet really, hasn't really understood the full scope of the possibilities and plucking them out of that situation and putting them in a better one. So that happened to me. Got here, and suddenly was surrounded by real writers, both students and faculty. And, of course the light went on that one I wasn't working hard enough. Two I hadn't read enough. And three that the world didn't really care if I became a writer. There were plenty of other people to fill the spots. So that, I just remember that urgency in those first few weeks. Like holy shit, I thought I was doing pretty well. But I was working at about a 12 percent level. >> Right. >> So what a, what a blessing to sort of be told by the world, yeah writing is really hard, and almost impossible, and there are people who are already working at it. So get going. >> So let's go from there. Because you are now, you have been, I think for 17 years, a professor here in the MFA Program. And the MFA Program in fiction here and in poetry, is now top five in the country. >> Yeah. >> What do you think makes this program good? Why do you think it is a good program? And what do you think an MFA can do for a young writer? >> Well my model is always that, the writer's going to be fine. A young writer who's meant to write will be working hard and making progress. And the analogy I always use is this. She's kind of, you know, running through a winter forest very energetically with a lot of passion. But she's wearing ice skates, you know. And it's kind of, I don't know, this is kind of hard. And then if we do our job right, it's like a frozen pond appears, you know. She's still using her same energy. She's still going the same direction. But suddenly for that three years it's easier and maybe she, in that atmosphere of sort of reduced hardship and increased focus, she can reach a little higher on her, I'm mixing metaphors, personal tree and in the woods in the forest with the snow. But it's also spring. But really, in that slightly rarified air, she can get to that place to where she's doing a thing that only she can do. That's the goal. So, what's the first part of the question again? >> Well just in terms of why you think our specific program is strong? >> Oh, okay so what we do. And I, you know, I do a lot of traveling to other programs. And I think what we do well, one of them, one of the things is just very mechanical which is we fund everybody. >> So key right? Because people from a background like yours would never have been able to come here. >> Exactly right. If I'd have gotten in, and I did get into programs where I had to pay and couldn't go. >> Right. >> So, what we can do is we can find somebody we make, as you know, Dana and I do this marathon reading every February with Arthur Flowers our colleague. We read this year 566 applications for six spots. So, but when we read that, the thing that's wonderful about a program is when we read, we're only reading for talent. And if somebody is poor, it doesn't matter. If somebody is from a foreign country, it doesn't matter. >> We don't care what aesthetic their, I mean we don't have a program of one narrow view of how you should write. >> Right. >> That we're trying to inflict on people. >> Just that if somebody is good they can come. And in my case I couldn't have, I'll tell the story in a minute. But I came here with a, you know. $150 cash. That's what I could raise. >> And you were living in your car. >> I lived in my truck for two weeks. [Inaudible] because I didn't have the money. But our program by funding people 100 percent means that they can sort of relax during those three years. It also, the way we set it up structurally is there's not a lot of competition for resources once you get here. >> Yeah. >> You get what you get and there's three years of work. So that's kind of a tangible things. And there are programs in the country, as you know, that are, you know, a kid is paying $70,000 a year to get a MFA, which it has to poison the water a little bit when you sit down and say, okay now I've got to be a totally free spirit, and there's $70,000 going, repay me. Write something really commercial. So that's what we have. And then in a more kind of touchy feely level, we were very lucky. And I don't know how it happened, but at some point, we got a certain vibe which I would just describe as very kind of low key, noble ship, very loving, and everybody in our faculty, I mean this sounds like a, but if you really value teaching, we sort of put it first. So, and we have a lot of affection for these students that we have for three years. So that is hard to quantify. But really, really true that a kid comes here maybe with a, of course as you would, there's a lot of defenses up. Maybe I'm not good enough to be here. And then I think something in the atmosphere makes them think, well I'm home, you know I can kind of relax a little bit. >> Part of it I think is it struck when you, when I was coming to Syracuse and was asking, what's it like to be at Syracuse, you know. And because I was considering taking this job. And you were talking to me about it. And you said, that's sort of, you know, there's something great about it. You're not, you're near New York but you're not in New York. And there's something great about writing from Syracuse. And you wrote for, you lived in Syracuse for many years and wrote a lot while you were here. And maybe there's something just sort of unpretentious about this place that gives you more freedom than say, living in Brooklyn. I don't know. >> I think, I mean I've never lived in Brooklyn, but I know. >> Right. >> I'm very subject to peer pressure you know. >> Right. >> So if I was in, here I just felt like I was in this kind of microcosm of America where there was. >> Right. >> Everything that is in America is here, but kind of small scale. And just kind of living here, every day I had some kind of insight about American life. Or saw something kind of weird and beautiful that I wanted that would make me want to write. So I was always happy to be here and, yeah, it was sort of. And I tell our students, you know, it's not a totally active place culture. You can get things here. >> Right. >> But if you want to withdraw you can. So it's sort of, you can see, you know, that maybe about this time of year in their first semester, they're like, yeah. What do I do now? >> Right. >> And what they do is they go home and they work. >> And they write. >> Yeah. >> Yeah because there's not so many nightclubs and things to go to. >> Right. >> But and the winter course helps them be good writers I think too. >> It does. Yeah, it does. >> Suffering is good for writers. I've heard of this. >> I mean, you know, it's easy, I mean anyone who's a writer, or any kind of creative person knows that when you get to the moment of truth, the tendency is to take a break, you know. >> Yeah. >> I've got to go research this now. >> Right. >> Or you know, and here, I think in a larger scale, you eventually get sort of, I don't know what the word would be, but the kind of, the mood drives you back to your desk eventually. You can only take so many breaks and eventually you settle into the thing itself sitting right in front of you and you have to take it on. >> Yeah, I think that is, I think that that's how [inaudible]. >> We're making it sound like we're up in Siberia with the mongrel hordes and everything but. >> Okay, so Siberia's a good segue to my next question. So you teach a legendary class on Russian literature. >> Yeah. >> And in our MFA Program we teach these literature for writer's course. It's called Forms. Tell me why it is, why is reading so crucial for writers and why is, why Russian literature. Why is that important for young writers to read Russian literature? >> Well I, I teach that class mainly because I have gotten so much from the Russians. They were just huge in my [inaudible]. And as you know, one of the benefits of these Form classes is that you can teach what you're passionate about without having to justify it. I just love the Russians, so I'm going to assume that if I teach that there'll be more power in it. But those stories also are so situated on simple, the big truths. You know life, love, infidelity, evil, good, you know, and so I have a feeling that a lot of young writers need to be permitted or encouraged to take up the big themes. >> Yeah. >> Until you say, yeah, it is about, well you should write a story about that. And once in your life, you know. >> Right. >> Love is a totally valid topic and you have to take it on. So to put these great examples in front of them. And then what we get to do is kind of look at them technically. Like. >> Right. >> So there's. We sort of discourage any kind of academic jargonizing. >> It's not theory. It's really close reading. >> And it's not even, it's not history either. >> Right. >> It's just like how did Tolstoy pull this off? We taught a story called Master and Man yesterday. >> Right. >> Where there's, it's a famous story of transformation where this total Scrooge-like money pig suddenly has a reversal and saves a peasant's life. So we just spent most of the time just looking at the moment where he changes. How is it that we don't, how is it that we buy that? >> Right. >> It's so, potentially so sentimental. How on a line by line basis did he pull that off? And what' interesting is when you do that, there's always such interesting answers that are very technical actually. And you can see the light go on where the students realize that to be, to pull off a great fictive moment like that. You don't have to be some kind of seer. But you do have to be a great editor, you know, a great interactor with your own text. So that's really, and then in that way, you know, people like us who really don't know anything except how to perceive in our own work actually. >> Right. >> Can then kind of take what we've learned the day before, say. >> Right. >> And bring it to class. As opposed to sort of some big theoretical structure. >> Alright, so let's talk about that there's an interaction between your own and practice and teaching. I mean I find even just reading the submissions, you get to be a better reader for sure by reading other people's work and deciding well, this is working, this isn't. You become very, and we sort of realize we actually match up in our opinions that there's something here, right? That we actually do know something about this. >> Right. >> And that's sort of helpful. But how would you say over the years the teaching has, what impact has it had on your, your own fiction and both good and maybe challenging too. >> Well the thing I realized this year that this sort of [inaudible] but I was earlier this month, you know, working at home and kind of getting confused and couldn't quite figure out where I was. Came here, and this semester I'm teaching six hours in a row on Thursday basically, with a fifteen minute break. So, I stopped everything, prepped really heavily, went in there. Had two really interesting classes. And it was almost like I'd gotten, I don't want to, I'd gotten a full body enema base. I was like, wow, I forgot I had a problem with my story. I'm just kind of energized by these students. >> Right. >> And all my stuff has been, almost like if you got in a boxing match or something. You come out and go wow, life is new, you know. I'm bleeding, life is new. >> Sometimes they do give you energy. >> They, they sort of, the activity of doing something different clears your mind. But on a deeper level, one thing I've noticed, and this more and more acute as I get older I think. You know, you feel like your work, who knows, it could be dead in a year. It could last, but you'll be dead so you won't know it. Unless heaven is self-Googling, which we have to pray that isn't the case. But, you know, you don't really know what you're writing work will amount to. You can't know. But you can know if you have a meeting with a student and something clicks for her. And sometimes, as you know, and I know you're a master of this, sometimes it's not just writing that clicks. It's the life stuff that clicks. And maybe that back filtrates into the right and maybe it doesn't. But I think we actually have a great privilege of taking people at that magic moment of their lives and sometimes kicking them up into a greater person even. That I think endures. It endures just in the sense that person lives another x number of years and influences a subset. And as I'm getting older, I'm actually more and more convinced of the very real nature of that thing. How valuable it is. >> Right. >> And then also for me it's wonderful to have like a, you know, seventeen years of students. That's just, I had for the first time a former student, or no a kid came up to me and said, you taught my father. Liar. What was he eight? No way. But then, you know, to see, for me there's a sense of like, things don't change. There's always talented young people in the world. >> Right. >> Just as talented as you or just as talented as Tolstoy's generation. That doesn't change. The flavor of the talent might change. But how heartening to know that always there are going to be 25 year old kids who are newly fired up with the power of language and their own ability to do something. And that keeps you really kind of energized too I think. >> And it does feel like a privilege because we do get to work with such, such impressive students. You know, and it's contagious. Their ambition, not about successes of themselves, but their ambition, artistic ambition is really kind of, challenges you too. You know, stuff like, yeah I remember, that's right. You know, like this is exciting. This is everything. You really feel like it's everything and you remember it. >> It kind of burns off any kind of cynicism that you might have. >> Yes, yeah. >> Yeah. >> So another thing I want to talk about is the undergrads is that the, the workshop at the undergraduate level has become incredibly popular. It sort of exploded in the last five years. Why do you think that is? >> Well I had this. >> People want to study fiction. >> Yeah. I have a sense. There was a book a few years where I didn't read. This is what I do, I kind of just read the summaries and then act like I read the book. But there was a book, and I think the idea was that in a [inaudible] increasingly wealthy culture, there's this sort of idea that the only valid jobs are artistic jobs, something like that. The book, maybe I dreamed that book, I don't know. But I think people, young people feel that is sort of a glamorous job. But what I noticed the change in the last five years or so is that people who want to be writers automatically think MFA, which I think is unfortunate [inaudible]. >> Right. Right. >> You know. I always say it's like there's two big false ideas. And one is that if you wanted to be a writer, you have to get MFA, demonstratively untrue. The other one is that if you get an MFA you'll definitely be a publisher. >> Right. >> And the second one is weirder to me. I was at a really good school. I won't name it. But a really good school. And this nice undergrad came up to me, and he said, yeah, my parents are kind of upset that I'm a creative writing minor. I was kind of like yeah. You know, I don't blame them. But then he said, can you offer, can you assure me that I'll have, can you tell me something so that I can assure them that I will be successful in writing? I thought, I don't even know you, you know. And I said, usually I'm kind of new age and sort of like well of course. You're groovy. But instead I couldn't help myself. I just said, I said, no, in fact, I mean statistically you won't. And that kid looked like it was the first time in his life he'd ever gotten pushed back, you know. So I think there's this idea. It kind of offends me because, you know, when we're coming up, I'm older than you, but even in your youthful generation, there was this idea that you were. >> Much younger. >> Much younger. When you were, you know, when you've committed to the artistic path, you were doing something kind of bat shit. You know. >> Right. >> You know, you were taking a big chance, and you were leaving you culture and potential behind and taking a big risk. >> And you were certainly going in the non-material direction. >> Exactly. And now I think there's a sense that kids want to have it both ways. That this is a career. It's fine. It's perfectly safe because I'll go under this shelter of the MFA and everyone will protect me. And sort of an idea like, yeah it'd be cool to have a book out. I could deal with that. You know, what? So. >> I think one of the things we do at our MFA program is we are very clear about stoking artistic ambition, but also being realistic about how difficult it is to make a living from writing. How nearly impossible it is. And that you have to do this for other reasons. There are much better ways to make money in the world. >> I don't know if he knows about. We do these things that we, we haven't come up with a better name for these. So if anyone has, at least we call them jams, I don't know. But we just kind of have these frank, sometimes Friday afternoon talks to the students about some aspect of writing that doesn't come up in class. So, one year I thought, you know what would be really good is, just thinking about my own trajectory and stuff, let's talk money. Let's talk about the actual money. >> I was there for that. >> Were you? Okay, alright. >> It was a sad conversation. >> [Inaudible]. I had it all planned out. And I thought it would be so frank, and the kids would really love it. And I spelled it out rather too directly. Like I just said, here's how much money I got from my first book. And they went uh. And then I said now, here's where it went. I mean 20 percent to taxes, over 30 percent. my kid's school, da, da, da. And then there was nothing left. And I said, also by the way, we, I got paid in four installments over four years. And you can see the air just went out of the room, you know. And that was only the beginning. >> And you're the lucky top percent. >> Yeah, yeah. So that's was. So I made that speech and I thought I really, that was too much. That was not too much information. But the funny thing was the next week in one of these talks, one of our students got a half a million dollar contract. So. >> So they were like, we'll just pay attention to that. >> That guy's crazy. He's just a loser. >> So in today's New York Times, they have a, the actual headline is For Better Social Skills, Scientists Recommend a Little Check-Off. They now have the, they've done this study that shows that, and I'll quote to you, it found that after reading literary fiction as opposed to popular fiction or serious non-fiction, people perform better on tests measuring empathy, social perception, and emotional intelligence. >> Yeah. >> Why is that? Why is literary fiction, what they mean by literary fiction, that they use Don DeLillo and Wendell Berry here. They're talking about a kind of difficulty I suppose. But why do think that makes people? >> Yeah. I think it's real simple that you are, you're doing sort of a guided visualization. You're saying once upon a time there's this guy named Henry. And the reader will go, really. And then you start talking about Henry. And in that instant, you're not only yourself anymore. >> Right. >> And actually, in a truthful way, you're Henry. But you're also the author. >> And yourself. >> And yourself. And your, they say Henry walked up a wider path. You go hmm, and you've supplied the wider, you supply a path. >> Right. >> And so then suddenly you're in this really interesting guided visualization that's being guided by a person you don't know. So in that process, you're finding out that you have a lot in common with that writer you don't know, and with Henry, who doesn't exist. >> Right. >> But some way you're being invited/guided to be empathetic with someone that is not you. >> And someone who is complicated. Because [inaudible] difference here between commercial and literary is that commercial fiction was reassuring the reader while the literary fiction was forcing the reader to be a little bit more uncomfortable. >> Yes. >> About who they were relating to or why. >> Yeah and one thing I noticed in this teaching this Tolstoy yesterday, one of the most pleasant fictive reading experiences is when you've started to judge a person in this direction. >> Right. >> And some fact comes and makes it ambiguous. So in this story, Master and Man, this guy is a very money-grubbing sort of fellow. And then suddenly there's a moment where he starts explaining, you know, sort of an interior monologue, but why he's money-grubbing. And you kind of see that he's vulnerable in that, you know. So I think it's a really wonderful enactment of something that happens in real life where you start to judge some guy, and in the midst of that, some counter fact comes and you go, oh yeah. And you have to exist in that suspended state of judgment. Which I think is really a, it's kind of a sacred state. >> Absolutely. I think it's the key. Jim Shepard once, the writer Jim Shepherd was saying that. I heard him give a lecture, and he was saying that, there's a conflict in the story that the character has. But there's also the conflict that the reader has about the character. >> Beautiful. >> And that's what you're, that's the real drama. >> Right. >> Of a fiction. >> That's beautiful. There's a story about Mary Gordon, the Syracuse grad, called The Deacon, which I think is. You know, she's got, there's a little deacon character who's kind of unlikeable. And you don't like him. And the writer doesn't like him. And the other characters in the story don't like him. And you're sort of enjoying not liking him. >> Right. >> In a certain way. Because he's not likeable. He's a jerk. And then at some point he turns to the character and basically says some form of, you're the only person who has ever treated me with any respect. >> Aw. >> And you, and as a reader you feel totally implicated in that moment just as she is. >> Well that's another key is implicating the reader I think. Yeah. >> Yes. So after that, what Jim described, you've been coasting along in your habitual state of judging and enjoying judging, and the story and the character have called you on it. You've caught yourself up in it. It's really complicated and beautiful. >> Well maybe the last question before I go to the Q&A is that interestingly enough that in this same article it said that the readers, the very same readers who are in this study, preferred the commercial fiction. So let's talk about reader pleasure, which is something I know you consider. >> Yes. >> And these other things that we're talking about, which is sort of a reader difficulty or challenge as well. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> How do you, how do you negotiate, how do you reconcile all of those or keep them both in play? >> You know in writing, in teaching writing, you're always coming up against these binaries. You know, realist or experimental, funny or not. And I think often when I get to those binaries, I just want to like dissolve the binary. So, when I think about reader [inaudible] pleasure versus, you know, difficulty, I always kind of say, well, I want to be precisely as difficult as I need to be to produce the highest form of pleasure. >> Okay good. >> So in other words, if I'm describing the moment, an actual moment, first of all I want to inhabit it deeply through the process of revising it many times. And then when I get to the crux of it, I don't really, I want to use language that is just perfect to get it. If it has to be hard, I'm, I love my readers. They'll deal with it, you know. If it's hard just to be hard, they're going to feel me being a jerk. >> Right. >> If it's too easy because I'm worried about offending them, they're going to feel like I'm condescending. So I think in a certain way the dichotomy vanishes. >> Right. >> If you just say, I want to communicate, you know. So Faulkner, you know, at his best, is using exactly the kind of language he needs to blow your mind, you know. >> Right, and that is a great pleasure. >> Yeah it is. >> Because you feel, you feel, you do feel reassured about human beings. Even as you're not reassured about your own petty vanities or whatever. >> Exactly. >> So it's a, it's a deeper kind of reassurance. >> It is. >> So people actually looked [inaudible]. >> I think the, I think the reassurance, the reassurance is that feeling when. >> Recognition. >> Recognition. And also the idea that the reader, the reader, the writer is looking at you and saying, I see you. >> Yeah. >> I don't know you, but I see you. And I'm assuming that you're every bit as smart and compassionate and troubled and confused and fearful and blah, blah, blah, as I am. Let's talk, you know. >> Yeah. >> As opposed to, huh, yeah I know something you don't know. Get over here. I'd like to. >> Right. >> Dump some shit on you. It's much more, you know I. >> Expecting a lot of the reader and respecting the reader and then that pleasure you get when that. >> Just like, I mean it's like engagement, you know, like we're, so I think for me that's been, lately, especially my mantra is just communicate. And communicate on the deepest level you can given that you're limited, you know. >> Great. And so I will open it up now because it's 10. So, if we have questions, or if you want to just, there's a microphone here if you raise your hand. There's a [inaudible] right there. >> I might not need a microphone. >> Okay. >> You don't. >> I'm here [inaudible]. >> Sorry. >> It was really great. One I want to say that it was very good to read with a group where [inaudible] reactions and I think if you read something alone and you're possibly choosing the book, but I chose a book that [inaudible]. I enjoyed your work and then to sit with a group and sort of really get intense reactions to [inaudible] was really great. But I do have an editorial question. I was wondering of the stories that were chosen for Tenth of December, was there one that an editor, since you don't include this or had challenges with or said, why are you including this, you know. >> Do you have one in mind? >> One of the short ones actually. >> Yeah, yeah. >> You talk a lot about the really short stories and why in a sense they were there. What would happen if they weren't there. >> Right. No that's the right way to think about it. I, in that case, the only thing that happened editorially is that long story, that Semplica Girl Diaries, wasn't in it when I sold it. Because I hadn't figured it out. I'd been working on it for fourteen years, and I hadn't figured it out. So I sold the book without that. And I liked it, but it felt maybe a little bit. I like the feeling of something that is big and sort of over the top. And that you go, wow, really one more, you know. So that was a last minute addition where I kind of raced to get it done. I think about this time last year I was still finishing it off. And other than that, there wasn't a lot of discussion or taking things out. Because I, I really try to be, I don't write a lot of stories anyway. So I would say probably there might have been one or two stories I wrote during that seven year period that I didn't put in. So in a certain way I just kind of laid them all out there. But that, that kind of thinking is what you do when you're putting a collection together. And it's really hard because you don't want to make a mistake. And my thinking, I took a bunch of index cards basically and put the first and the last line of the story and the title and just got down on the floor and moved them around for a weekend, you know. And that one stories sticks as the short one. That was actually written in '94. So that's a little bit, kind of lost [inaudible] but, anyway thanks for reading it. I hope that they still are your friends now that [inaudible]. >> Yeah [inaudible]. >> Yeah okay. >> Oh sorry. I want to ask a little bit about Escape from Spiderhead. I think that a lot of times, I think when people would read a story like that they'd think, oh, he's trying to do social commentary. Except I'm not sure that's actually what you were trying to do. Do you mind kind of going into that story a little more and explaining how you came to that subject and. >> Sure. >> Sort of the process when you wrote it? >> Yeah, I mean I never, I never think social commentary. Because when I do, the story is always dull. You know, because then it's preaching. So on that one, you know what actually happened was that I had been writing some other story, I don't remember which one it was. But sometimes I'll, you know if, let's say that if is you're the highest diction you can attain and still retain, you know, grammar, I had been writing down here on purpose. I was kind of, not exactly dumbing down, but simplifying down a little bit. And I had kind of gotten tired of it. And I wanted to kind of stretch, you know. So I just wrote that section of the story where he takes the drug that makes him talk better basically. And I didn't know what to do with it, but I really enjoyed that stretching. And then I thought, well, huh, so why would, you know, how can I account for that tone shift? And I thought, I broke. You know, he gets a drug that makes him talk better. And then that became interesting. And so, I tend to start with some little seed like that, and then just start going through it. And what happens then is that the theme or the idea or the social contra comes out naturally. Instead of being the main focus, it's an ancillary benefit, you know. So for me I just love the idea that you could find a kind of plot point that would allow you to write in different, funny registers. And then you say, well what would do that. How about drugs? Okay. You know, and then you're off, kind of off to the races. >> Hi I'm an English major. I actually in my senior seminar. I graduated from [inaudible] University. And we did a senior seminar on James Joyce's Ulysses, which I could not comprehend on my own. But class really made it the most influential novel I've ever read. Mainly me saying I'm stupid. I don't get this. Can you help? Please help me. And I was wondering as a writer but also as a professor, when you're writing something, how much do you expect the reader to engage with others and have that discussion to make it impactful? >> Actually Dana teaches that, a legendary Forms course on Ulysses that, that students really love. I, well you know actually this book was the, was the first book of mine that actually sold any, you know. So had that really wonderful experience of having the book go out, not only to the people who should have read it, but some who maybe shouldn't have, you know. And so I actually really loved it. There was a [inaudible] a lot of confused letters, angry letters. And I had a great one from a woman in Vermont, and she sent me the book back. She said, I will not have this in my house. And I thought of giving it to a friend, but I like my friends. You know, like the, and I go what. And so part of her thing was the swear words. Which to me, I don't really, that doesn't sting. But then she said, these stories, and she was very articulate, and she said, these stories, their main way of proceeding is by cruelty, you know. So I wrote her this lengthy, you know, former Catholic, very defensive cringing letter. But, I like that that people would be troubled by it actually. At first you don't. At first you want everyone just to like. But if you see that you get under somebody's skin and make them really angry, that's kind of good. And it's also good because that makes you cross-examine yourself a little bit, you know. I'm not a writer who when I send something out thinks it's even, I mean I think it's good, but I don't, I don't stand by it like I would some kind of truth. I mean like I don't, this is the best I could do. I hope it does something for you. It's not, these things didn't actually happen. We're playing a game together. But I really love that quality of energy that's come out of this book. Even though a lot of it's been sort of troubled and [inaudible]. And yeah, I think that's, I think that's what you're trying to do ultimately, you know. If you talk to Hemmingway or Faulkner, they're like, of course, you know, or Dickens. Of course I want to cause ripples somewhere, you know. And I do want people to, I love the idea of people getting together and talking about it or arguing about it. Or a divided book club maybe say. >> I think it's kind of, it's kind of wonderful to think about how many people have your book, and it feels almost subversive. And you've sort of snuck thing under the radar where there's actually this really challenging, exciting, and pleasurable book to read. But that, you know, especially, I think it's just thrilling. It doesn't happen very often. >> Right. >> That a book of your caliber reaches a wide audience, and it's supposed to happen. >> One of the arguments that I can hear opening up is this idea that darkness. What is darkness in fiction about? Is it, is there a function for it? Is there a use for it? What's the, you know, is there a value to somebody pointing out darker truths, or even it as a thing, making it uncomfortable nastiness. >> Absolutely. >> That's, art has always done that. And I think in our, especially in sort of our critical culture right now, there's a sense that art is supposed to be transparently good for you. >> And likeable. >> And likeable. >> So I like everything. >> Yeah, yeah. It's kind of alright. I mean it still, it bothers me. I wrote a four page letter to that woman. Sent her flowers and [inaudible]. >> But did she respond to your? >> She did respond. She responded kind of like a, oh, that's good to know. I'll, I, no she said, thank you very much for giving me a different way of thinking about fiction. I'm in my 80s, so this is all new to me. I do want you to know I did read your book three times. >> Wow. >> So, and then she said, and then she said I'll write more later, but right now I have to, my garden is calling me. And that, and she never wrote back after that. So. >> That's great though. That's great. There's apparently, down here, yeah go ahead. Down, this gentleman and then up there. Okay. >> Yes, you speak about your love for Russian literature. Can you read any Russian? >> No. >> It's the first. Okay. And then, your texts are being translated to the other languages. Are you able to read it in other languages? >> No, I'm that classic American who, you know, there's that old joke about if you speak three languages, your trilingual, two languages, your bilingual, one language, American. So I'm, I don't read any other language. >> And you speak about being a teacher and teaching. >> Buy I'm sorry, I can't hear you. >> About your program. >> Uh huh. >> It's very exciting. Is it open to International students? >> Yeah. >> Or in English [inaudible]. >> Oh yeah. We have, most every year we have almost every. >> I talk about that because it's very interesting. >> Well we get applications from all over the world. And basically, you know, they have to be able to b wonderful in English. That's the first [inaudible]. But we've had students from China, India, where else recently. >> Africa. >> Africa, some African students. >> And there's Christie from the Bahamas. >> The Bahamas. And actually in that Russian class I have a young woman whose, I think, first generation Russian, maybe second. So she's. >> Russian American. >> She speaks Russian. Yeah. And that's really wonderful to say, to read Tolstoy and say, Anna, read it to us in Russian. She read us some Bulgakov in Russian the other day, and it was just one of those amazing teaching moments where we couldn't understand it. But the music was there. And so if we get in a place where we're not sure, we just turn to Anna and say, how would you read it in Russian. And she tells us. So we try, the only problem that I've seen with that is that, American kids are very indoctrinated in the workshop method. So we've had sometimes students, especially from Asia and Africa, come in and just not like that method of, of collaborative thing. They have a more, maybe a more traditional idea of the writer as this kind of iconic figure who makes all the decisions. And the kind of new age aspect of workshop. They, it takes a little getting used to for them. You know, they kind of resist the idea that everybody's sort of pawing through their work and so on. But, on the other hand, we had a wonderful Pakistani student here during nine-eleven, and it was really powerful to be in the middle of some kind of political discussion or political [inaudible] discussion and to have him suddenly step up and very articulately represent a completely contrary and previously unimaginable viewpoint. That was really enriching, yeah, so. >> Yeah, I think up there right. >> I wanted to ask about your wonderful graduation speech that recently went viral. I wanted to ask you how you chose that topic. Why you think it resonated so strongly. I got sent it, I don't know, probably twenty times. And the impact that it's had on you, you know, separate from your book publications. >> Sure. You know it was just, Dean Langford asked me in the middle of this big book tour to do it. And I went, yeah, alright, I'll do it. And then it came about a week before and I thought, oh I got to write that. And I had given a speech very similar to that to our daughter's middle school graduation at MPH over here in Syracuse. And so I thought, oh yeah, I'll dust that off. And then I couldn't find it. I had my meticulous filing system. I don't know where it is. So I just kind of wrote from scratch. And I think what, I mean, I think what made it, I don't know, I didn't expect that to happen. But I think what made it resonate is was I was basically in the original incarnation talking to my daughters. I knew my daughters would be there, my wife, all my daughters' friends would be there. All these teachers who have been so generous with her. So I felt like it was kind of an intimacy, you know, in that. It couldn't really BS too much. You had to speak directly. And I think some of that carried over. And I also noticed when I got in front in the Dome, I felt sort of really loving, you know, towards this community that I've been part of for all these years. So I think that might have been part of it. But other than that, it was really surprising, you know. And it also, it's terrible because now you have to be kind all the time. No more shoplifting. That's right off the record. No, it was really fun to have that happen. >> [Inaudible]. I was just curious. I have no idea if you want to go in any direction you want to with this. I love, my favorite story of all is the Persistent Gappers of Frip. >> Oh thanks. >> And I wondered if you approached that in any way that was different from your other work. If it, if you decided halfway through, oh this is for children and not what I was intending. Just, what about that made that a unique work in your, from your end of things? >> Sure Yeah, you know you're right. It was very different. Because I was, I had been, our girls were little and I had this routine of going in at night and just providing a story for them. Which for me is hard, because I'm a real re-writer, you know. But I just, so one night I improvised something like that and though, well maybe I'll formalize it. And the big difference for me was, you know, I knew it was for kids from the beginning. Again, had my daughters in mind. And I think what happens there, I noticed something about my mindset was, I allowed myself a happy ending. Which at that point in my work I never did. You know, if there was a car I wanted it in the ditch. And so because it's for kids I thought, alright, so my normal work I think at that point for sure, existed to say, it was an embodiment of that Jacobian idea that every happy man should, every happy man should have an unhappy man in his closet with a hammer to remind him by his constant tapping that not everyone is happy. So that was kind of the mindset of my adult fiction was, yeah, yeah, yeah, we've got it good. But let's look at this person who's in misery, you know. This is the opposite. Which is to say, even though sometimes things are scary, they sometimes come out well. You sometimes, you might have resources that make a positive outcome. So it was kind of liberating to have that permission, you know, to say, yeah we have to get out of this in sort of a happier spirit. I think that's why it was a little bit different. >> More questions? Up there. >> Can you talk about your next works in progress right now and what your plans are? >> I'm superstitious. I have something in progress, so yes. No, I actually, I, what I think about that is, most, I'm not sure if you would agree with this, but most, I think most creative people have some desire to get attention. And in the best case, you refine that into, you want to get attention for something that you've done remarkably well. So for me, part of that dynamic is to withhold, withhold it until it's perfect, quote, unquote. And then put it out. And I find that if I let something out early, it dissipates all that energy of concealment. And even talking about it, I've told maybe four people, including Dana a little bit, what it is. And I, I'm kind of, you know, protective of it so that it's my secret until four years from now. And then I. But something is going on. And luckily I started it like fifteen years ago. So it's pretty familiar, and it's kind of. Yeah. It's got words in it. I'm kind of doing some punctuation things. And kind of paragraph breaks. The whole thing, you know the whole thing. >> Any more questions? >> How do you pick your stores? How do you decide which one to land on and spend all those years working on? >> Yeah, that's the good question. Well what I do really is I don't, I'm a not a big fan of having an idea because in the past what'll happen is I'll have an idea and the idea sometimes contains the seeds of the ending. And suddenly it's already done. You know, you've kind of, it's the mystery is out of it. So, I try to like keep myself from having ideas about stories. And instead start with just some little, some, little fragment. You know, a couple sentences. Maybe a setting. And the idea is if you start with that and kind of really messing with the line to line level, it actually grows out like a seed crystal in biology class. It will grow out organically, you know, in the direction of its own natural energy. And then sometimes in the process of that you'll say, oh yeah, this is a story about this or this, this will probably happen in the story. But I think the trick is for me to keep your conceptualizing out of it early. So really the answer to your question is, I just look at which little fragment is growing the most aggressively, you know. Getting a little bit out of my control. Or we talked about this yesterday, what, when you get up in the morning and you think about the four or five things you have going on, what gets you excited, you know. Like this idea that somehow writing is actually supposed to be a joyful sort of naughty thing, kind of fun that you do. Kind of like playing with blocks or something. So if you look at three things in progress and two of them are like, oh God, that's so hard, you know. And the third one gets you a little giddy. I would always go to the third one. So that's really. >> [Inaudible]. >> I'm sorry. >> I said, do you work on several projects at once? >> I always have, yeah, yeah. For that reason. Because that way, you know, if you have a project that's a little dead and you're, you know, you take your puritan work ethic, and I've got to work on it. I always make it worse. If I don't feel happy and inspired and kind of joyful about it. Or energized about it, I make it worse. So that way you can look at the four things and go, you know, you three guys are dead to me at the moment. Step out of the room so I don't mangle you. And then the fourth thing that's a little bit live you can go there. And I'm, this project that I'm talking about is a little longer. So that's the same thing. You can sometimes say, well I, this part isn't interesting me, but this part is. Let me try that. So with my students I always say that you're really trying to occupy a zone about which you have strong opinions. And when you don't have a strong opinion, what rises to fill the gap area ideas. And ideas are deadly at certain stages to fiction writing. Alright, so, I know I've had so many projects that I've messed up because I didn't have any opinions, visceral opinions. But I had some intellectual ideas. So, it's like a relationship. If you, you know, were dating somebody, and you, dating several people let's say. And, two of them you didn't have any strong, you know, well you'd want to spend time with the third one, you know. And when the, when the, in the story when I, the fun goes out of it, the ideas take over and then you kill whatever you're working on. I do anyway. >> We have a question down here too. Okay. >> This one. >> I wonder if you could have any accessible workshops or [inaudible] sessions that may be open to high school students [inaudible]. >> Are they in the area? >> Yeah. >> We don't, officially we don't. But if you email me, we could, if a kid wanted to sit on a Forms class, they, we don't do any sitting in on the workshops because that's high level and it's six people. And it's kind of private. But, yeah I would certainly, we've done that in the past. So if you email me at my SU account, we'd be happy to set that up. >> And this gentleman has a question. Yeah. >> Hi. I'm wondering if you read much nonfiction, and if so sir, what are the patterns and the themes that you gravitate toward? >> You know I, it's such a cliché, but I'm a middle-aged white guy and I love history. That's why the History Channel exists I guess. But I also, because of my background, I'm not actually that well-read, and I'm like, my knowledge of history is very spotty. So what I'm trying to do now is, is get informed in the bigger world more than I am. So I'm reading right now the, A People's Tragedy, a History of the Russian Revolution by Orlando Figes, which is amazing. And then a book called Patriotic Gore, by Edmund Wilson, which is a beautiful study of the literature of the Civil War. And I'm finding that, you know, my talent I realized early, is very small. And it's got a very small room to work in. So one of my sort of midlife or past jobs is to make that room a little bigger. Just to be a little more cognizant of historical things. So yeah, I'm actually almost reading only nonfiction these days. >> [Inaudible] even ten grand is a lot of [inaudible]. Ten grand, I mean, these days doesn't seem like a lot money. [Inaudible]. How long did it take you to come up with the figure? [Inaudible]. >> You know what, honestly, that story came out of a dream when we lived in Syracuse. And at that time, ten thousand was a lot of money for a. >> Yeah, because my first job was $10,000, and at the time I thought, wow I'm rich. >> Right. >> Ten thousand [inaudible]. >> I know exactly. >> [Inaudible]. >> There were times in our life where we, you know, we had, where $10,000 would maybe, I remember the first time I sold a story to Harper's I got $2,200 at Christmastime. And I remember taking it, and we put some of it away, but I had 800 or something, and I was going to go buy Christmas presents. And I got, this was, I got 800 cash. And it was, because the credit cards were always bouncing at that time. So I thought 800 cash. And it was the richest, I never felt so wealthy, you know. So anyway, in that story I actually almost revised that number upward recently. But I thought, ah, let it stay, $10,000 is kind of good. That story was, that was the one that took 14 years. So that, that, maybe inflation should have raised that number up a little bit over the years. >> One more question here. >> I'm kind of like that lady from Vermont, but truth is stranger than fiction. What's happening locally. There's a lot of crazy beep going on. How does that affect your life on the hill and into the larger community? Because, you know, you talked a little bit about being grounded in the community. And if you follow the news at all, it's, there's a lot of crazy. >> Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I guess, I mean my feeling is there's always been a lot of crazy shit going on. And we have a particular flavor of crazy shit at the moment. But, I think fiction, I would say, exists to address the eternal crazy shit, you know. The things in human beings that cause us to always be influx and in agony, and you know, so on. So at least when I'm writing fiction I tend to take in all that stuff and try to get out in it as much as possible. Like I did that thing in a couple years ago where I went to live in a homeless camp for a week incognito. But then at the time of writing fiction, I think you sort of say, let's not get distracted by the temporary or the, you know, the ephemeral, the temporary manifestation. Well let's go for the deeper thing. Which, you know, back when we were in caves, there are still neurotics. You know, and there are still people whose desire, desires were impossible to meet. People who loved and then have their loved one parish. You know all the things that make us human were there in every single thing. So in fiction I think part of the wonderful thing is you can kind of recuse yourself from the temporary and retreat into those eternal verities, the eternal problems. And then of course you come back around and put contemporary clothing on them. You know, so a story about longing might take place in the destiny USA. Or a story about death might be somebody gets hit on the freeway. But, at the heart of it you're trying to, you know, sort of do a sustained meditation on the things that are eternally beautiful and troubling about life on earth. >> Good. I think that's it. Oh, one more question. >> My favorite two characters in literature is [inaudible]. >> Oh is this in the first story Victory Lap? >> Victory Lap that you're talking about? >> No he's not Russian. >> He's not Russian. >> What happens is, what happens is, you know, it's, there's a church here in Jamesville. >> Yeah. >> You know that one with the blue dome. I just, that's where I put the story just because I drove by it every day. So the idea is that the kid lives close to the Russian church, and when he first sees that guy, he thinks, wait is that right, yeah he thinks he's a Russian. He thinks he's from the church. So he say, risky, good leap Boris, but the kid, the guy's not Russian, yeah. No, no. >> Hi. I think I read somewhere in one of your interviews and you mentioned something about the softening effect. >> Softening effect? >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Can you elaborate on what you mean by that and why it's important? >> Sure. I think, I think what it means, kind of what we talked about earlier, empathy is that if I, if I don't, let's say I have a prejudice against Russians, which I don't, I love Russians, but let's say I do. Let's say I'm, you know, ah those Russians. Then in fiction, I represent a Russian person. Mostly he's a person who happens to be Russian. And I am looking at this Russian guy, and his marriage has just broken up, and he loves his teenage son so much, but the kid seems to be drifting away from him. And in the process of writing that, I become that Russian guy because the writer is identifying the commonalities, you know. That the Russian guy has a, is going bald, you know. And he talks, he thinks very funnily and truthfully about going bald. And I go, oh yeah, that is so true. Suddenly now there's a mind meld going on where I'm that Russian, and in the process you go, oh, you know I actually don't have anything against Russians. I mean that's sort of a cheesy example. But I think the process of imaging someone else's reality has the effect of softening the boundary between me and other, right. So over the course, if you make an energetic practice of reading, you're constantly being reminded that what you think is you is temporary and porous. And it's not as riveted as you think it is. So the effect is to soften so that when something cuts you off in track, you think I've done that. You know, that on a different day that could, I think that's what I mean. I mean, you know. Whatever habitual ideas you have, it stops them from being hardened I think. And that's true for reading, and I think it's also true for writing as you. You know because you have to imagine another person. And even in that story Victory Lap, there's a guy, there's an abductor, like a really terrible guy. Well, because of structural reasons I had to write a scene from his point of view, which I really didn't want to do. But, as you're doing that, you know, you're writing. You're thinking about who he is, and you even become softened towards that guy a little bit. Because you're thinking about the details of his life and his habits of speech and thinking and so on. So I think it's kind of a useful thing to do. >> Well good. I think that might be a good place to end. Thank you George. >> Thank you all very much. Thank you Dana.