Reading this book I was acutely aware that I was not the main audience for it. Take George’s class and come out of it cleverer than you were before. And while this is specifically a class about the short story form, and specifically about these Russian authors, the insights provided here apply to any kind of fiction.įorgoing lofty academic concepts, Saunders focuses on just the important stuff: What makes a story work? What makes it good? What makes a reader want to keep reading? What makes the reading experience satisfying (and what doesn’t)? It’s both a practical approach for aspiring writers, and a fascinating exercise for readers who like to think about what they read (hello Goodreads friends!). I’ll be honest and admit that I didn’t always enjoy the homework, but Saunders’ breakdown and analysis of the stories more than made up for that. Seven short stories by Tolstoy, Chekhov, Turgenev and Gogol to be precise and no, you can’t skip the homework. Your instructor is George Saunders, and while his personality shines through, please note that this book could not be further from the experience of reading Saunders’ fiction.įor a start, a good chunk of this book is not by Saunders at all, but a bunch of dead Russians. Ī book that achieves exactly what it sets out to, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain is essentially a writing class in book form. His favorite charity is a project to educate Tibetan refugee children in Nepal. He conducted a Guest Workshop at the Eastman School of Music, Fall 1995, and was an Adjunct Professor at Saint John Fisher College, Rochester, New York, 1990-1995 and Adjunct Professor at Siena College, Loudonville, New York in Fall 1989. Petersburg, Russia, Summer 2000), Brown University, Dickinson College, Hobart & William Smith Colleges. He has also been a Visiting Writer at Vermont Studio Center, University of Georgia MayMester Program, University of Denver, University of Texas at Austin, St. He has been an Assistant Professor, Syracuse University Creative Writing Program since 1997. Saunders received an MA with an emphasis in creative writing in 1988. He has also worked in Sumatra on an oil exploration geophysics crew, as a doorman in Beverly Hills, a roofer in Chicago, a convenience store clerk, a guitarist in a Texas country-and-western band, and a knuckle-puller in a West Texas slaughterhouse.Īfter reading in People magazine about the Master's program at Syracuse University, he applied. He worked at Radian International, an environmental engineering firm in Rochester, NY as a technical writer and geophysical engineer from 1989 to 1996. in Geophysical Engineering from Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado. George Saunders was born Decemand raised on the south side of Chicago.

A swim in the pond in the rain review