Which is sort of static and condescending – doesn’t take the reader’s experience into account, we might say. He’s just backed the big manure truck containing His Ideas up to the reader and let it rip. The great danger is that the writer will (in his quest to express his ideas) overpower the actual energy of the story – and in so doing, will fail to be interesting. It seems to me that you have to really see what the story wants to say, and to honor the situation and people you are making. I have a lot of political and ethical and spiritual ideas but I’ve found that stories aren’t a very good vehicle for expressing those – sort of like making a hammer out of Jell-o. I think nearly every writer has that struggle. What ideas influenced your guest and how has he expressed those ideas in his short stories? – From patteso via webĪ: It’s a great point. Q: I have trouble expressing my ideas in stories without sounding preachy (sometimes I sound very preachy when I express myself in stories and poetry). As for your father – God bless him, and you. I try not to invest too much metaphorical of extra-textual meaning into titles of character names and so on. Basically, I picked it just because I love the sound of that phrase. Q: Did I miss the title explanation why the 10th of December? Curious: it’s my deceased father’s birthday – From Twitter user I think we may have talked about this a bit at the end. Q: Could you ask Saunders to talk about his process and how he uses other writers’ works provoke his own creativity? – From Twitter user The one writer I go back to again and again for inspiration is Nikolai Gogol – especially “The Nose,” “The Overcoat,” and “Dead Souls.” I don’t know why except that these stories are so insane and compassionate and impossible to categorize – they’re funny and a little mean and then again full of love. George Saunders answered listeners’ questions about the writing process, his body of work and his new book, “Tenth of December.”

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