Professor George Saunders Reflects On His New Book, “The Mom of Bold Action”

“The Mom of Bold Action”, a short story written by George Saunders, professor of English in the College of Arts and Science, was covered in The New Statesman article “George Sauders: ‘We’re in this intimate tennis game, the reader and the writer’.”

The author of this piece for The New Statesman spoke to George Saunders about his book, to which Saunders explained moments and underlying messages he was trying to get across. He said, ‘the mother’s sentiment about writing is “actually true, I think. I think she’s not a very good writer. Or she was writing that piece out of too much emotion. And… you know, she didn’t go back and look at it.” When the mother reads the essay again, she reflects, “yes, it sort of flowed, but when you really broke it down…” So the story is, among other things, a parable about the dangers of the first draft – and, by implication, the painful necessity of revision.’