George Saunders

Oh, that's really an interesting one.

Because the idea is that you just want to experience it again.

That's right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I can tell you one, just a selfish one.

I mean, the one that came to mind just as kind of a funny thing is when I first had the story in The New Yorker, that was a very huge deal.

And I think what I would kind of take with me is a little more understanding of what a big deal it was.

Because to get a story in The New Yorker, probably now, but certainly at that time, was harder than getting a novel out.

It was really...

rare and it changed the whole trajectory of my life in a way that I don't think I knew it would.

So if I could go back, I might just, you know.

Well, I had gotten two of these nice rejection letters that were like, this isn't quite it, but send us more, which was unheard of.

So I was actually working as an environmental engineer, and I was up at Watertown, New York, doing an investigation of a DOD facility that had groundwater contamination.

So we were working these 13-, 14-hour days, and I came back to the microtel where we were staying, and there was a note, and it said –

It was kind of like malapropistic, like New Yorker editor says thumbs up or something.

And the person that took the message wasn't there.

It was a little too cryptic for my taste.

So I had to go back into work the next day.

And I think at lunch break, I managed to call, just before cell phones, managed to call and got the confirmation.