George Saunders (born December 2, 1958) is an American writer of short stories, essays, novellas and children's books. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's, McSweeney's and GQ. He also contributed a weekly column, American Psyche, to the weekend magazine of The Guardian until October 2008.A professor at Syracuse University, Saunders won the National Magazine Award for fiction in 1994, 1996, 2000, and 2004, and second prize in the O. Henry Awards in 1997. His first story collection, CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, was a finalist for the 1996 PEN/Hemingway Award. In 2006 Saunders received a MacArthur Fellowship. In 2006 he won the World Fantasy Award for his short story "CommComm". His story collection In Persuasion Nation was a finalist for The Story Prize in 2007. In 2013, he won the PEN/Malamud Award and was a finalist for the National Book Award. Saunders's Tenth of December: Stories won the 2013 Story Prize for short-story collections and the inaugural (2014) Folio Prize.
Syracuse University (1988), Colorado School of Mines
Awards
MacArthur Fellowship
Movies
Winky
Star Sign
Sagittarius
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Fact
1
Speaks French, Spanish and a smattering of Russian (studied Russian at a 6 week intensive UC California Berkeley course in 1981) for credits to get into NYU. Was originally hired for Hunt for Red October because he had some knowledge of language.
2
Never took a single writing class in college or after. Attributes 'luck' to being hired as a writer.
3
Attended Stephens College in 1979 (an all girls school) as a ballet dancer, on full scholarship. Former alumni include George C. Scott, Jennifer Tilly, and Dawn Adams from "Gilligan's Island" fame.
4
Acknowledges that his proudest moments were those when he was able to interview United States military personnel for the Marines, Army, United States Air Force and Navy during his involvement with Military Films, a documentary-drama that highlighted combined United States forces activities during the first Gulf War. Was also in charge of acquisition of key footage and writing narration to 'picture' of footage captured by production team. "Our men and women in uniform are heroes, plain and simple.".
$200,000
