A Most Exclusive Workshop

“I began to understand art as a kind of black box the reader enters. He enters in one state of mind and exits in another.” George Saunders

To study under George Saunders, a writer could get into the creative writing program at Syracruse University and perhaps get into one of Saunders’ writing workshops–some having as few as five students. You could read his book based on his workshop on Russian short stories A Swim in a Pond in the Rain. You won’t find him on social media where he believes it’s “100% toxic for people to be firing off the top of their brains.” But you can sign up for his class, Story Club, on Substack. Parts of it are free, but if you want access to everything, you can pay $50.

Why would you do that?

Because there are few writers as good as Saunders at analyzing and understanding how reading and writing work. The author of numerous short stories and the novel Lincoln in the Bardo his honors range from the PEN/Malamud Award to finalist in the National Book Award to the Booker Prize and stops in-between. He’s won both a MacArthur and Guggenheim fellowship. But not all award-winning authors can or will explain what they’re doing or what they see other authors doing.

Not only is Saunders an insightful, thoughtful analyst of what makes a story work, he has wonderfully generous attitude toward teaching and students. It reminds me of that rule in improv theater that you never say “no” to whatever is tossed your way. You say “yes, and…”  so the sketch keeps going and maybe turns into something magical. In that same way, Saunders bends the story analysis and reaction on Story Club toward mutual appreciation and discovery.

I also like that his focus as a writer and as a teacher seems to be about how a story becomes that black box of transformation. Isn’t emotional charge and transformation what any reader and writer hopes for? That’s what Saunders looks for in his own writing and that’s what he hopes to teach his students.

If you’re a reader who likes to talk about stories or a writer, I highly recommending checking out Story Club at: https://georgesaunders.substack.com

Here’s a little more about Saunders himself:

George Saunders on What Buddhists Can Offer the World Right Now

WRITING LESSONS

Here at the beginning of a new year, I thought it might be fun to revisit my beginnings as a writer and share what I learned from those first attempts. It’s a story in three chapters.

Chapter one – The Music of Language, age 5

I am lying under the piano listening to my oldest sister practice when I find a silver letter opener on the rug. I am filled with an irresistible urge to scratch my name into the shellacked finish of the piano, but I know I will get in trouble if my mom finds it, so I carve ‘KATE,’ my two-year old sister’s name, instead.

LESSON LEARNED: Writing can be risky when your mom finds out.

Chapter two – A Dramatic Arc, age 10

I pass a note down our row to Denny Minners, the cutest boy in the fifth grade. The note says: “I like you. Do you like me? Check one: yes or no.”

Mrs. Hague confiscates my note as it makes its way back up the row. She reads it to the class. I bury my head in my sweatered arms, breathing wet wool. Denny’s answer makes it worse. He has checked “no.”

LESSON LEARNED: It’s dangerous to put your heart on paper.

Chapter three – Writing Lab, ages 15-18

Every Wednesday after dinner my dad and I go over the weekly column I write for his newspaper. My column is called Campus Letter and it’s full of news from my high school, like the Junior Statesmen of America’s straw poll (Hubert Humphrey beat Nixon 2 to 1), or the theme for the Christmas Ball (Tinsel Time).

My dad and I sit at the kitchen counter next to the just-washed dishes. He holds his black copy pencil ready. I offer up my small sheaf of freshly-typed pages.

And the lessons begin: crafting a lead sentence, writing tight, choosing the right word, checking facts – lessons usually offered with humor and affection, but sometimes freighted with his impatience which makes me cry. Dad drives home the idea that how you tell a story is as important as what the story is about. For three years we work together Wednesday nights in the kitchen. I come to know myself as a writer and as his daughter. I come to know the satisfaction of expressing myself through writing.

LESSON LEARNED: Writing is hard, but an exacting teacher who believes in you makes all the difference.

Eventually I figured out I came to the wrong conclusions in the first two chapters. I realized it’s okay to write stuff that your mom doesn’t approve of, and that stories are, truly, better if you put your heart on the page. But Dad’s weekly lessons stayed true and developed my ability to write my observations and life experiences into story.

•      •      •      •      •

I’m a believer in Maya Angelou’s advice, “When you learn, teach.” School visits give me a chance to teach kids to write their life experiences into stories.

Like the time I visited Vernonia, in the coast range of Oregon. This town of 2,200 residents had been ravaged by a catastrophic flood. Businesses and schools and hundreds of homes had flooded, requiring National Guard troops to rescue more than 200 people as the Nehalem River crested above flood levels. Teachers at the elementary school hoped I might encourage students to write about their flood experiences, to help them deal with the trauma.

I workshopped with kids in the primary grades. I talked about writing as a way to think things through. I demonstrated how I use drawing to center and generate a story before writing the text. Then I led a brainstorming session, urging kids to float back in their memories, to find a story that evokes big emotion – fear, laughter, love, anger, awe; to find a story that raised its hand to be told that day.

Surprisingly, many of the stories that offered themselves were not flood-related. Other stories loomed bigger for some kids, so, of course, that’s what they wrote about. There was a story about catching a big fish, another titled “The First Time I Jumped on my Horse Named Emily,” and another “My Mom’s Wedding.”

My favorite was “How We Built a New Rec Room” written by a second grade boy who was one of seven kids – “My dad decided he didn’t really need all of the garage,” the story began. The boy wrote how each kid helped with a part of the project. He had helped his dad with the mudding. It ended with an illustration of the whole family sitting on the sofa in the new rec room.

I was proud of these young writers who were willing to go with the memories that bubbled up and shape them into stories.

At the end of that long day of making stories with the kids at Vernonia Elementary, I was walking down the hall when a voice chirped ‘Mrs. Kaskasnosky.” I turned to see this little kid running toward me, his lunchbox in one hand, his coat hooked by the hood onto his head and flying out behind. He reached for my hand and looked up into my face. “I love you,” he said.

That’s what happens when you bring the stories that matter to the page. Happy new year and new beginnings to you all!