George Saunders

It was really great.

Met a bunch of lovely people and did a talk and everything.

And at the end, I was collecting my things and I just got to stand in that window for a minute.

The desk used to be right at this window.

And it was the weirdest thing, you know, because that guy that I was was so ambitious and so stupid, you know, so like not in touch with how one went about having a writing life or what it would mean.

And really, I mean, like grotesquely out of touch.

But he was pretty earnest, you know.

And I remember sitting at that desk reading Thomas Wolfe, Look Homeward, Angel, and trying to write like that and, you know, and had some heartbreaks and had a death in the family and just really intense.

And there was something very wild about being almost 70.

and standing there and going, okay, so what that kid wanted to do, you kind of did it.

And then just feeling those two people juxtaposed like that.

I can't really quite describe it.

It's funny, I started late.

The first book didn't come out until I was 38.

So I feel like I'm really racing to make the most of what talent I have and trying to do really good work in whatever time is left.

But in that early time, one of the things that was so beautiful about it was that I had gotten everything

like my stupid dreams of being a prodigy were just obviously not going to happen.

And so for the first time, it was kind of like, all right, what if you don't have any writing career?

What if you don't have anything at which you're particularly great at?

You're just a, you know, just a good, hopefully a good father and husband.