![Describe a perfect day where you live. If my mind is right, any day is perfect. If not, not. Happy / Sad [two-headed monster] "It's your mind, man!" A wise friend.](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!wONB!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa18c08e8-299a-4d06-9a13-cec6b35f98fc_1024x1306.jpeg "Describe a perfect day where you live. If my mind is right, any day is perfect. If not, not. Happy / Sad [two-headed monster] \"It's your mind, man!\" A wise friend.")
Hey y’all,
George Saunders is the award-winning author of a dozen books, including his latest #1 New York Times bestseller, Vigil. He writes a wildly-popular Substack called Story Club with George Saunders that explores how the short story works. This typewriter interview was conducted via the magic of the United States Postal Service. (For a plain-text version with links and a few extra notes from me, see the P.S. below.)
!["What did you do as a child that made the hours pass like minutes?" (C. Jung) Dream/fantasize. A rosy future! [pic of GS, age 10] One of our daughters called this state "imaginating."](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!HBTO!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6a0fc4aa-a6fe-4d5f-b177-7c5df19345be_1024x1306.jpeg "\"What did you do as a child that made the hours pass like minutes?\" (C. Jung) Dream/fantasize. A rosy future! [pic of GS, age 10] One of our daughters called this state \"imaginating.\"")
![John Waters says he has "youth spies" that keep him up-to-date on culture. Do you have any youth spies? Well, I teach, which is good - but I think art depends on being in touch with something ageless [+] eternal within - which might require reject[ing] so-called "culture," you know?](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_WDR!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc1729afe-851d-4696-a4f4-2902eb6e6801_1024x1307.jpeg "John Waters says he has \"youth spies\" that keep him up-to-date on culture. Do you have any youth spies? Well, I teach, which is good - but I think art depends on being in touch with something ageless [+] eternal within - which might require reject[ing] so-called \"culture,\" you know?")
![Do you see yourself as part of an artistic lineage? Who would you place in your creative family tree? Yes! M. Python [?] Chekhov Tobias Wolff Hemingway KA Porter Gogol T. Morrison Vonnegut Tolstoy Grace Paley [BADLY DRAWN TREE!]](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!ioBL!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F37ec3856-6b82-4eb4-8551-3141b30d2a86_1024x1306.jpeg "Do you see yourself as part of an artistic lineage? Who would you place in your creative family tree? Yes! M. Python [?] Chekhov Tobias Wolff Hemingway KA Porter Gogol T. Morrison Vonnegut Tolstoy Grace Paley [BADLY DRAWN TREE!]")
Big thanks to George for being the 27th participant in this series of typewriter interviews.
Go out and buy a copy of Vigil and subscribe to Story Club with George Saunders!
Shout-out to paid subscribers who buy me the time to do all the email coordinating, typing, snail-mailing, scanning, transcribing, and editing that goes into these! You can make more of these happen with a click of a button:
xoxo,
Austin
P.S. I’ve been studying and admiring Saunders for over half my life. (There’s a story about him in Don’t Call It Art.) Here is a 19-year-old sketchbook page from a G.S. reading I attended in Oberlin, Ohio in April 2007: