Nonfiction Reading Series welcomes George Saunders

The Writing Program is pleased to announce that
our fall featured speaker in the Nonfiction Reading Series will be
George Saunders.

Oct. 21
3:30-5 p.m.
Katzer Room, Hinds Hall

George Saunders is the author of three collections of short stories:
the bestselling “Pastoralia,” set against a warped, hilarious and
terrifyingly recognizable American landscape; “CivilWarLand in Bad
Decline,” a Finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award, and “In Persuasion
Nation,” one of three finalists for the 2006 STORY Prize for best short
story collection of the year. “Pastoralia” and “CivilWarLand in Bad
Decline” were both New York Times Notable Books. Saunders is also the
author of the novella-length illustrated fable, “The Brief and
Frightening Reign of Phil,” which takes us into a profoundly strange
country called Inner Horner, and the New York Times bestselling
children’s book, “The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip,” illustrated by
Lane Smith, which has also won major children’s literature prizes in
Italy and the Netherlands. The Boston Globe lauds Saunders’ ability to
“construct a story of absurdist satire, then locate within it a moment
of searing humanity.”
Most recently, he published a book of essays, “The Braindead
Megaphone,” which received critical acclaim and landed him spots on “The Charlie Rose Show,” “Late Night with David Letterman” and “The Colbert Report.” Vanity Fair wrote of the book,”Saunders’ bitingly clever and compassionate essays are a Mark Twain-syle shot in the arm for Americans, an antidote to the dumbing down virus plaguing our country. Well, we live in hope.”
His work appears regularly in The New Yorker, GQ and Harpers Magazine, and has appeared in the O. Henry, Best American Short Story, Best Non-Required Reading, and Best American Travel Writing anthologies.