A Few Highlights from Past Story Prize Events

Here's a short highlight reel we've put together to promote The Story Prize event on Feb. 28 at The New School. That night, authors Daniel Alarcón, Ottessa Moshfegh, and Elizabeth Strout will read from and discuss their work onstage before we announce the winner. (You can order tickets here.)

This video includes excerpts from George Saunders, Adam Johnson, Lorrie Moore, and Adam Johnson. Sometime soon, we hope to create a longer video featuring more highlights of author readings and interviews from past Story Prize events.

Thanks to the Creative Writing Program at The New School, which co-sponsors our award events and arranges to have them recorded each year.

George Saunders (and The Story Prize) on CBS Sunday Morning

If you watch this profile George Saunders that ran earlier today on CBS Sunday Morning, at the 3:05 mark, you'll see Story Prize Founder Julie Lindsey announcing Saunders as the winner of The Story Prize. A producer asked for permission to film at last year's event. We, of course, said yes, and we've been waiting for our 15 seconds ever since then.

Please Join Us for The Story Prize Event on March 4 at The New School

Between the time we announce The Story Prize finalists in early January and the event at which we honor all three of them and present one with the $20,000 top prize, we spend a lot of time worrying about filling the seats in The New School auditorium. We always end up doing pretty well on that count (and probably would without worryng about it as much as we do), but we're still eager to have a substantial audience to support the three authors, The Story Prize, and the form we exist to promote—short fiction.

(L to R: Francesca Marciano, Elizabeth McCracken, and Lorrie Moore)

The authors always prove to be interesting and amusing, but it's also no secret that writers aren't necessarily the most outgoing bunch. We all know that their real performances take place when they are alone and writing, and that what matters most happens on the page and through the deeply personal experience of reading their work. So whether you plan to join us or not, we can't recommend too highly the three books we're honoring: The Other Language by Francesca Marciano, Thunderstruck by Elizabeth McCracken, and Bark by Lorrie Moore.

You can watch the event later on YouTube or FORA.tv, and we post a lot of pictures in the days that follow, but it is, of course, impossible to reproduce the live atmosphere in the auditorium. Nothing can take the place of the authors' presence, the burst of laughter or buzz that comes from the room when one of them reads or says something funny or profound, or the feeling of suspense before we announce the winner, the electric moment when founder Julie Lindsey speaks that name, and the moving experience of seeing someone accept the prize—most often a hard-working, supremely talented, and deserving author who hasn't received a comparable honor before. (For instance, last year was the first time George Saunders had ever won a book award.)

Tickets are $14 (close to the same as a movie ticket). The event is a week from today, on March 4 at 7:30 p.m., at The New School auditorium at 66 W. 12th St. Please join us if you can.

Interrogating the Story: George Saunders Gives Voice to His Work at Rutgers-Newark

By Nick Fuller Googins
Newark, NJ, April 15, 2014

Ventriloquist: Saunders reading at Rutgers-Newark
(photo by John Keene)

I learned something new about George Saunders when he visited Rutgers last week: In addition to his fearsome fiction-writing powers and his killer beard and his reputation as a really nice guy, he also has a preternatural knack for voices.

Don’t confuse “voices” with “voice,” as in, the unique tone and expression of a narrator or character. That Saunders knows “voice” goes without saying. I mean voic-es, plural, as in, the precise spoken-aloud voice of a bumbling teenage gentleman suitor. (“Let us go stand on the moon. Or, uh, in the moon. In the moonlight.”) Or the precious, cartoony voice of a baby deer trembling in the woods. (“Is my mom killed?”) Or the aristocratic, slightly-snobby voice of an apologetic hunter who has just killed poor trembling-baby-deer’s mom. (“If I could will life back into this fawn, I would do so, in hopes you might defer one tender kiss upon our elderly forehead.”)

Saunders willed life into all these voices and more on April 15th at Rutgers University’s Paul Robeson Gallery, where he capped off this season’s Writers at Newark Reading Series along with poet Matthea Harvey. Before reading from “Victory Lap”—the opening story in his Story-Prize-winning collection, Tenth of December—Saunders explained that the story is written in what he calls “third-person ventriloquism,” or, “third-person close, but you drop into the character’s diction as quickly as possible.” With that, he dropped in, broadcasting straight from the wandering mind of Alison Pope, an egregiously optimistic girl about to turn fifteen:

There was so much she didn’t know! Like how to change the oil. Or even check the oil. How to open the hood. How to bake brownies. That was embarrassing, actually, being a girl and all. And what was a mortgage? Did it come with the house? When you breast-fed, did you have to like push the milk out?

Alison, in the first section of “Victory Lap,” does nothing more than dance downstairs  (“hop over thin metal thingie separating hallway tile from living-room rug. Curtsy to self in entryway mirror…”) and into the kitchen for a handful of Cheez Doodles. Yet, through his “ventriloquism,” Saunders grants us immediate access to the inner-most reaches of Alison’s being without the need for lengthy passages of exposition or psychological description. He introduces Alison, as he does most of his characters, by sharing their thoughts with us, in real-time. And when those thoughts include an awkward gentleman suitor, a trembling baby deer, a snobby aristocratic hunter, and so on—all voiced by Saunders—they are not only delightful insights into a character’s psyche, but insanely funny as well. Saunders’s reading often felt more like a performance, and in this way he thwarted my attempt to capture a clean audio recording. I guess that’s something else I learned: One does not simply expect a George Saunders reading not to be laced with continual and uncontrollable laughter.

Hardly surprising, then, to hear that Saunders partially gauges the success of a story by measuring the amount of fun he has while writing. This came in response to a Rutgers MFA student who asked about the stuff that doesn’t work. How does George Saunders know, when writing a new piece, if it’s time to walk away, try something new?

“One useful barometer,” Saunders said, “is whether it’s fun. Is it fun and do you feel confident at any given minute? What happens to me is that if it gets less fun and I feel less confident, my thinking, conceptual mind comes in, and I’ll say, ‘Oh! This is about patriarchy!’ and then suddenly—in my case—you’re deciding from a dumber place than if you were just trying to follow the joy and confidence of it. I’ll often find myself getting locked up in a story and trying to think it out, and if I can catch myself that’s a good place to go to something else.”

The author's well-worn copy

To help get his point across, he paraphrased Norman Mailer: “You should never have sex if it’s not fun.” (“Maybe that’s kind of obvious,” Saunders added. “Why you’d want to take Mailer’s advice on sex, I don’t know.”)

He had similar advice for a question regarding endings. How does George Saunders know when to wrap up a story?

“Most of my writing process is rereading what I’ve already done and trying to react honestly to it: Am I liking it or not? Is it positive or negative? In a sense, finishing a story is trying to be able to get through it on a given day with that needle staying in the positive range. And being honest—if the needle comes down, don’t panic, just turn to the story and go, ‘Is there a problem?’ and the story will go, ‘Yeah, there is, I kinda suck on page three.’” (Saunders, evidently, plays ventriloquist not only for the characters in his stories, but also for his stories themselves. This particular story was whiney and mopey with a hint of self-indulgent defeatism). After honest evaluation—Saunders cautions—if your story really does admit to sucking on page three, it is important to avoid panic mode. Better to continue the interrogation.

“You’ll say, ‘What’s the matter?’ and your story will go, ‘I’m boring.’ So then you try to address it, and eventually you think it through to where you’re all right, until it’s polished off to the very last paragraph. And by then your subconscious is so deeply enriched in it that there probably is an ending.”

He added, later, “I thought the best definition of an ending is, stopping without sucking.”

As for the ending of “Victory Lap,” Saunders left us hanging, stopping after the first two sections of the story. It was a well-chosen moment that most definitely did not suck: radiant Alison Pope in serious and immediate danger. Some of us in the audience may have loudly groaned.

“It all turns out fine!” Saunders said, returning to the podium. He couldn’t help himself. He’s too nice a guy. “Don’t worry!”

Video: The Story Prize Event on March 5, Andrea Barrett, Rebecca Lee, and George Saunders

In case you missed The Story Prize event on March 5 at The New School, here's the video. That night, the three finalists—Andrea Barrett, Rebecca Lee, and George Saunders—read from and discussed their work on-stage. And at the culmination of the event, we announced the winner for books published in 2013: George Saunders' Tenth of December. 

News Flash: What They're Saying About The Story Prize Event

Andrea Barrett, George Saunders, and Rebecca Lee
(photo: Beowulf Sheehan)

Here are some press accounts of The Story Prize event on March 5, at which eventual winner George Saunders and fellow finalists Andrea Barrett and Rebecca Lee read from and discussed their work onstage at The New School:

The Outlet (Electric Literature)

Like Fire (Open Letters Monthly)

Last Night's Reading: George Saunders, Andrea Barrett

AP

Reuters

PublishersWeekly

GalleyCat

NPR

Shelf Awareness

Poets & Writers

Entertainment Weekly

The Post Standard and here

Star News

Book People

Fiction Writers Review

What the Judges Had to Say About George Saunders' Tenth of December

When the three judges for The Story Prize make their choices, they provide citations for the books. This year's judges were Stephen Enniss, Antonya Nelson, and Rob Spillman. We include the citations in congratulatory letters we present to each finalist, along with their checks ($20,000 to the winner, $5,000 to the other two finalists). To protect the confidentiality of the judges' votes and the integrity of the process, we don't attribute citations to any particular judge.

George Saunders accepts The Story Prize
(photo: Beowulf Sheehan)

Here's what the judges said about George Saunders' Tenth of December, this year's winner of The Story Prize:

"This is a masterful short story collection. Full of formal innovations whose purpose is to illuminate character in new ways, these stories reveal the darkest parts of humanity while simultaneously giving us light and hope. They read like an indictment of our current condition but also as a timeless reflection on morality in a frequently unmoral world. The shifts in tone and point of view, sometimes within the same story, are dazzling. Craft, vision, and heart come together in an alchemical reaction creating a work of art that is much greater than the sum of its parts. At turns beautiful and heartbreaking, Tenth of December is destined to be a work of art that defines our times." 

"George Saunders offers, in Tenth of December, a vision and version of our world that takes into account the serious menace all around us without denying the absurd pleasures that punctuate life. This book is very funny and very sad. Its author is generous and wise, and his voice, in bringing us The News, is utterly, charmingly, wonderfully unique."

George Saunders Wins His First Book Award, The Story Prize, for Tenth of December

George Saunders with the winner's bowl
(photo by Beowulf Sheehan)

To say that George Saunders' work has been widely celebrated, is something of an understatement. He has been a fellow of both the McArthur and Guggenheim variety. He has won the PEN/Malamud Award for short fiction. His stories have appeared in The New Yorker and Harper's magazine and have been chosen for the annual O. Henry Awards and Best American Short Story collections numerous times. He has appeared on Charlie Rose, Late Night with David Letterman, and The Colbert Report. Magazine cover stories have been written about him, and he has had a best-selling book, which appeared on the The New York Times lists for 15 weeks and reached as high as no. 2 on the hardcover list (all for a short story collection!).

Pretty heady stuff—especially considering that those are just some of the highlights. Still, one thing George Saunders had never accomplished—that is until last night—was winning a book award. Well, now he has. Saunders' story collection, Tenth of December, is this year's winner of The Story Prize. After he and fellow finalists Andrea Barrett and Rebecca Lee read from and discussed their work on stage at The New School in New York City, the Founder of The Story Prize, Julie Lindsey, announced Saunders as the winner, and he took the stage to accept the award.

In the days ahead, here and on our Web site, we'll post more about this, including citations from the judges, photos (also on Instagram) from the event and the after party, video, and links to media coverage.

And the Finalists for The Story Prize Are...Andrea Barrett, Rebecca Lee, and George Saunders

2013 finalists for The Story Prize: Barrett, Lee, and Saunders

The Story Prize, which is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year, is pleased to honor three outstanding short story collections chosen from 96 submissions representing 64 different publishers or imprints. The three finalists are:

• Archangel by Andrea Barrett (W.W. Norton)
• Bobcat by Rebecca Lee (Algonquin Books)
• Tenth of December by George Saunders (Random House)

On March 5, these three authors will read from and discuss their work on-stage at The New School's Auditorium at 66 West 12th Street at an event that starts at 7:30 p.m. After the final author interview, Julie LIndsey, Founder of The Story Prize, will announce the winner, who will get $20,000—still the most of any annual U.S. book award for fiction—along with an engraved silver bowl. The other two finalists will each take home $5,000.

You can buy tickets to the March 5 event from The New School box office online or by calling 212-229-5488.

It's always difficult to choose just three books as finalists (and one as The Story Prize Spotlight Award winner), and several other books we read would have made excellent choices. In the weeks ahead, I'll post a list of some of these other collections. Also look for more posts leading up to the event and to commemorate ten years of The Story Prize.

Julie and I have chosen the finalists, now, it's up to our three judges—Stephen Ennis, Antonya Nelson, and Rob Spillman—to determine which book will get the top prize. We will announce the outcome at our March 5 event and via social media: Twitter, Instagram, Google+, and Facebook.

George Saunders Talks Shop

In the 24th in a series of posts on 2013 books entered for The Story Prize, George Saunders, author of Tenth of December (Random House), discusses thematic cling-ons, initiating tidbits, and reading velocity.

How often does an idea for a story occur to you, and what triggers those ideas?
Well, they don’t occur to me often enough, that’s for sure. For me it’s not so much about having an idea, per se, but rather about having a way to just get a few sentences cranked out, with as few “thematic cling-ons” (sorry, that’s a highly technical Creative Writing Workshop term) as possible. What I’m really trying to do is avoid having an idea, while still producing sentences, and managing to build some sort of tension. When I get “an idea,” that’s trouble. Because my ideas are like: Deconstruct the capitalist paradigm. Or: Do something that sort of parallels that one thing that happened that time, but is more dramatic.

If you've ever written a story based on something another person told you would make a good story, what were the circumstances?
I can honestly say I’ve never done that. I’m not against it – but I think I automatically resist the “Oh, have I got a story for you” vibe—even if that voice is coming from me. Any story that I can think of in one chunk—before I write it, for example—generally doesn’t turn out very well. Because then the risk is, the story turns out just the way I planned. It says just what I intended it to. Which is dull, for the reader and the writer. What I like is to start out, tentatively, and as idea-free as possible—and then (closely watching the energy of the story), see where I end up. So, like I said above, the smaller the initiating tidbit (another technical Creative Writing workshop term), the better.

What's your approach to organizing a collection?
Well, usually about a year before I finish the book, I start to get a pretty good idea of what’s going in there. There might be a couple of things still in-progress, but there usually comes a time when, looking out on to the horizon, I feel: Yes, those stories I’ve finished, plus, maybe, these two in a pipeline, represent a coherent artistic blop (yet another technical etc., etc.). So once I get all of those stories done, I take a deep breath and make an index card for each: Title, first line, last line. And then I start moving those around on the floor or a big table. The idea at that point is: Which order would propel a reader most effectively through this book? That is: How can I arrange these so that the reader finishes the book, and feels great when she does? And from there it becomes a bit of a logical puzzle. These two stories should (or shouldn’t) go one after the other; this story needs to go first; this would make a good closer, etc., etc. And this process is exactly equal, turns out, to trying to produce the most thematic power—somehow, if I arrange the stories to produce a nice reading velocity, they turn out, also, to be telling a sort of under-story—one that I wasn’t really aware of as I was writing the individual stories.

What's the worst idea for a story you've ever had?
Well, I wrote an unreadable 700-page book based loosely (not loosely enough, apparently) on a friend’s wedding in Mexico, which was called “La Boda de Eduardo,” which I think translates as “Ed’s Wedding.” So that would probably be it. The wit of the title says it all.

What's the best story idea you've had that you've never been able to write to your satisfaction?
That would be something top-secret I’m working on right now. Nice try, Larry!

Where do you do most of your work? 
I have a little former tool-shed about 100 feet from our house. No internet, no phone.

In what other forms of artistic expression do you find inspiration?

Regina Spektor: "unpredictability and heart"
(Photo: Shervin Lainez)

I like to play guitar and have been doing this since I was a kid. I’ve recently started writing songs again. I really like to listen to music (not while I write, of course). Lately I’ve been listening to a lot of Regina Spektor. I think she’s brilliant. I love the unpredictability and heart of her songs, and I find listening to them very inspiring—a wonderful reminder that what we’re really doing in art is trying to make delight. I also love the songs of Rodney Crowell. He came to Syracuse last year and did a master-class on songwriting that I am still drawing on, for both songs and fiction. He has a great, open-hearted approach to writing, very generous—and he said a few incredible things about songwriting that really hit home for me. I learned so much about writing by just sitting there listening to him perform—mostly what I learned, or was reminded, is that we have to communicate. That’s at the heart of it.

What's the best and worst writing advice you've ever gotten?
I got two great pieces of writing advice while I was at Syracuse, one from Tobias Wolff and one from Douglas Unger. Both were more experiential—they weren’t one-liners. They were both very specific interactions that came at just the right time. Toby’s had to do with keeping the magic in one’s work, and Doug’s with dialogue writing.

I don’t think I’ve really ever gotten bad writing advice, except from myself.  It went like this: “Hey, you’re going to a wedding in Mexico? That would make a great NOVEL!”

Well, actually, there is one other bad piece of writing advice I might mention. It’s that dreadful old creative writing chestnut, “A coherent artistic blop must not consist solely of thematic cling-ons, unless one of these is also the initiating tidbit.” I just don’t buy that anymore.

What obstacles have you encountered as a writer, and what have you done to overcome them?
The biggest obstacle I’ve encountered (and one I am still encountering) is that I have a tendency to want to coast. That is, to show up in the morning and sort of go on auto-pilot, being very sure of myself and my project, without being willing to really dive in, change course, find some new energy in the story, reject what I think I know about it. That’s an ongoing challenge, I think. And not just in writing.

What's the shortest time it has taken you to write a story?
Well, I wrote “Sticks” in one go, in about twenty minutes, at my desk, when I was working as a tech writer. Of course, it’s only about 400 words. And I was a super-fast typist in those days.

What's the longest time it has take you to write a story?
It took me fourteen years to finish “The Semplica Girl Diaries.”  That is, unless I start revising it again.

Favoring Humanity: Deborah Eisenberg, George Saunders, and the Short Story

By Patrick Thomas Henry

Stranded: Eisenberg, Wittmann, and Saunders

On Jan. 11, readers escaped Manhattan’s rain-dowsed Union Square for an evening celebrating the contemporary short story. The event, at The Strand bookstore, paired Deborah Eisenberg and George Saunders for a reading and a discussion moderated by Newsweek/ Daily Beast books editor Lucas Wittmann. The event’s cover charge was the purchase of Saunders’ newest collection Tenth of December, Eisenberg’s The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg, or a ten-dollar Strand gift card—but the buzz among the sold-out crowd was that buying either book was a better deal than the gift card. The readings and discussion were held on an elevated dais at the rear of the Strand's rare books room, where shelves of collectible volumes served as a backdrop for the night’s conversation.

Eisenberg’ and Saunders’ accomplishments rank them among the top writers specializing in the short story. Eisenberg, among other accolades, has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a MacArthur Fellowship, and the 2011 PEN/Faulkner Award for The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg. She taught in the University of Virginia’s MFA program from 1994 to 2011 and now teaches at Columbia University. Saunders, also a MacArthur Fellow, was recently the subject of Joel Lovell’s New York Times Sunday Magazine cover story “George Saunders Has Written the Best Book You’ll Read This Year.” Saunders’ first book, CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award, and his collection In Persuasion Nation was a finalist for The Story Prize. Saunders has been a member of the graduate writing program faculty at Syracuse University since 1997.

George Saunders

Saunders read from “Home,” a short story from Tenth of December. In “Home,” a traumatized veteran finds his family and community in disarray. The story’s narrator cannot interpret the transformations in his town and personal life, and he eventually admits, in typical Saunders fashion, “I started feeling like a chump, like I was being held down by a bunch of guys so another guy could come over and put his New Age fist up my ass while explaining that having his fist up my ass was far from his first choice and was actually making him feel conflicted.”

Eisenberg then read an excerpt from “Revenge of the Dinosaurs,” first collected in Twilight of the Superheroes. In this story, the protagonist, Lulu, returns to the East Coast after her Nana suffered a disabling stroke, and Lulu’s miscommunications with her brother Bill lead to vocal clashes over Nana’s care. As a backdrop to Lulu and Bill’s vitriolic exchanges, Nana—rendered mute from her stroke—incessantly watches the black-and-white television’s shifty, grainy images, a resonant metaphor for the muddled conversations that govern our lives.

In response to these readings, Lucas Wittmann observed that each writer eloquently captured the inexpressive and inarticulate qualities of everyday speech. This interpretation of their work initiated a discussion on writing and teaching short fiction. Eisenberg and Saunders described how their work correlates to lived experiences and, furthermore, to teaching MFA students to sincerely depict their surroundings. Wittmann, invoking the footage of war protests in “Revenge of the Dinosaurs” and the recently discharged veteran in “Home,” asked the authors to place their stories in the context of recent political events. Eisenberg responded, after Wittmann queried her about the recently averted fiscal cliff and the crumbling vision of the American middle class. “One assumed there would always be a middle class. But now, to see it eroded and to see ourselves on this planetary cliff for everything—it couldn’t be more terrifying and riveting,” said Eisenberg.

Deborah Eisenberg

Eisenberg’s remarks suggested that the writer’s task is to express the intrinsic—and simultaneous—beauty and terror of our ever-shifting reality. Yet, both she and Saunders cautioned students against giving ideology priority because that approach can crowd out characters and genuine sentiments. These emotions, they argued, welcome the reader into a story’s fictionalized world. For this reason, Saunders commented that he often teaches Eisenberg’s Twilight of the Superheroes to his MFA students because of the collection’s “intelligent surface and overall charm.” For Saunders, the “charm offensive” of Eisenberg’s stories is effective because her prose explores the dramatic tension between characters and their circumstances, so that the larger ideas arise from the characters’ behaviors. When an author crafts a story in this way, Saunders claims, the ensuing symbols, tropes, and metaphors that convey a narrative’s message become “more honest, sincere.” This critical assessment could be swiveled around to accurately judge Saunders’ own stories, such as “Home,” which reveals the muddle of ideology to express the illegibility of its narrator’s circumstances at home.

Another reason to resist idea-based fiction is what Eisenberg termed the “danger of imposing rules.” Indeed, Saunders jocularly dismissed the misconception that MFA programs allow students to “receive the secrets on a silver platter.” Based on this conversation, Wittmann suggested that the purpose of an MFA program isn’t one of passing down strictures but of teaching students to read themselves and others. Eisenberg and Saunders both endorsed this mission. Yet, as both writers continued praising the short story’s compression as a means of amplifying a narrative’s clarity and momentum, I suspected that they were imparting a message as pervasive—yet easily neglected—as the shrouding mists outside The Strand. The writer’s craft must emphasize conveying sensation and emotion accurately, fairly, and evocatively—in defiance of our own worst habits. Eisenberg intimated as much when she discussed a conversion in her own writing habits: the decision to keep notebooks during the aftermath of September 11. Eisenberg said, “9/11 was a huge obstacle.  I felt that things were going to start changing immediately . . . and that it would be impossible to remember accurately.” So she bucked her own methods, kept journals, and resisted the urge to soliloquize in a manner that would emphasize concepts over humanity.

What Eisenberg and Saunders imparted on a cold, rainy night is a warming sentiment: May all writers have a vision crystalline enough to remember why they write, and for whom. This hope is as pervasive in Eisenberg’s Collected Stories and Saunders’ Tenth of December, as it was at their reading at The Strand.

A Play on George Saunders' Words

"Carolyn, remember that RE/MAX one where as the redhead kid falls asleep holding that Teddy bear rescued from the trash, the bear comes alive and winks, and the announcer goes, Home is the place where you find yourself no longer longing for home..."
—from "Jon" by George Saunders

President-elect Barack Obama is not the only show in town in Chicago. At the Building Stage, from now through Dec. 14, you can see a theatrical version of George Saunders' short story "Jon" (pictured above), adapted and directed by Seth Bockley of Collaboraction. The story is one of my favorites by Saunders, who read from it at our award night on Feb. 28, 2007, when In Persuasion Nation was a finalist for The Story Prize.

A lot of stories have been made into movies, and many I've read would be great for the stage, so I hope to see this happen more often. Here's the description of the play, which serves as a pretty good summary of the story, as well:

Jon is a futuristic allegory about teenage love and self-discovery in a corporate universe where television commercials replace life experiences.

Try it, you'll like it. I bet it's M'm M'm good.