Listen To George Saunders Talk About His First Novel, "Lincoln in the Bardo"

George Saunders is one of my absolute favorite writers, and though I adored his most recent release (a full-length fiction work called, "Lincoln in the Bardo") it is not where I'd suggest you meet him for the first time. His genius -- still, I think -- is in his short stories, and each collection has its own magic.

This podcast, though, dives into a few facets of Saunders I thoroughly appreciate: how he motivates himself to write ("...then finally, in 2012, noticing that I wasn’t getting any younger, not wanting to be the guy whose own gravestone would read “Afraid to Embark on Scary Artistic Project He Desperately Longed to Attempt”, decided to take a run at it, in exploratory fashion, no commitments."), his relationship with Buddhism, and how he crafts stories and characters.

Plenty of his other words and thoughts live on Little Hunches, and his is a mind to be explored and valued.