Episode 17: George Saunders

Before he was a MacArthur Genius or a Booker Prize-winner, George Saunders was a songwriter, an oil-field worker, and a slaughterhouse “knuckle-puller,” not to mention an MA student at what was then West Texas State University. In this in-depth interview, Amarillo College’s Chris Hudson joins me, Ryan Brooks, as we speak with the author of Lincoln in the Bardo, Tenth of December, CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, and many other books. We chat with Saunders about his roots in the Texas Panhandle and how his fascination with Custer has stretched from his first published story (written in Amarillo) to his latest novella, “Liberation Day.” We also discuss his attitudes about work, capitalism, and ghosts; whether the Panhandle is best understood as Steinbeckian or Trumpian; his time as a young musician in the Amarillo Songwriters Association; which of his writing students we should be paying attention to next; Flannery O’Connor; Lucky Hank; and much more. At the end of the interview, Saunders describes the impact three WT English profs – Richard Moseley, Charmazel Dudt, and Sue Park – had on life and his career, including teaching him to have faith in his own responses to literature. For more information on Saunders and his return to Amarillo and Canyon in April 2024, check out this page from High Plains Public Radio.

Cover Image: Michael Tomlinson, George Saunders, Pat Pacino, mid-1970s. Photos courtesy of Buddy Squyres.

Thursday, June 7, 1979 Amarillo Globe-Times