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Before he became a New York Times featured author, George Saunders worked as a knuckle puller at a slaughterhouse and a groundsman at an apartment complex. With an unglamorous past, “less than no money” and a 1966 pickup truck to sleep in, Saunders was selected for the Syracuse University MFA in creative writing.

“They literally lifted me out of that (life), put me among people who were wiser and better read than I was,” Saunders said. “Suddenly, you feel those changes start to work in your mind and your body. You get this whole life that you literally couldn’t have had. It’s a miracle, really.”

Saunders received his MFA from SU’s creative writing program in 1988 and has become its most notable alumnus, with honors such as winning the Booker Prize in 2017 and appearing on the 2013 TIME 100. He now teaches at SU, and in July 2024, The New York Times featured three of his books on its list of the “100 Best Books of the 21st Century.”

“We all know George, of course, as a rightfully world-famous writer, but we know him as a really generous colleague,” Jonathan Dee, the creative writing MFA program director, said.

SU’s creative writing MFA program began in 1963. It’s one of the oldest and most selective in the country because only six students are selected among more than 500 applicants. Students’ time is divided between writing workshop classes, seminars about technique and teaching undergraduate classes, Dee said.

Saunders was selected because the committee saw something in one story out of the three he submitted. It’s titled “A Lack of Order in the Floating Object Room,” and the idea for it came to Saunders in a dream.

“When we do the application reading, it’s hard to say what you’re looking for, but you know when you see it. It’s right there in your face, and it’s a person talking to you,” Saunders said. “I think they saw something like that. And so on the basis of that, they took a chance on me.”

When Saunders started the program, he did not know how to channel his skills. SU helped him develop proper writing habits and learn how to revise a story over months of close work.

“(They said) ‘Well, yeah, you’ve got some interesting experiences in your life,’” Saunders said. “Even though I was maybe a little bit embarrassed about those experiences, working at a slaughterhouse or whatever.”

Courtesy of Pat Martin

Although George Saunders currently lives in California, he returns to Syracuse University multiple times each fall semester to teach the third-year creative writing workshop. He is always available to help his students.

A distinguishing characteristic of the SU creative writing MFA program is the support it offers its students. It provides students with a stipend to allow them to spend their time focused entirely on their work, instead of charging tuition.

Dee previously taught at Columbia University, New York University and Brooklyn College, but stays at SU because of its supportive, collegial atmosphere. He finds it gratifying to help students improve their art.

“Just worrying about, ‘How good could I become at this if I really gave it my all and devoted myself wholly to my art?’ – which is pretty hard to do when you’re living in the real world,” Dee said.

Molly Gorevan is a third-year MFA student in Saunders’ workshop class. She described the program and its stipend as a dream because she could spend three years focusing on writing a novel.

In return for the lack of tuition, students teach undergraduate classes at SU. With the new undergraduate creative writing major that began in 2021, MFA students can now teach classes in the English and textual studies, writing and rhetoric and creative writing departments.

Gorevan was a high school English teacher and enjoys teaching undergraduate classes as a MFA student. She said the classrooms are locations for “pure” discovery.

“I love fiction, and I find it so mysterious,” Gorevan said. “None of us really understand why a story is so moving. It’s beautiful to get together and try to figure it out for each person’s weird story that’s sort of weird in the same way that each of us are weird.”

Gorevan said she came to SU pretending to be a “capital W” writer but, through the program, has learned how to write authentically. Now, with the guidance of faculty like Saunders, she brings all she has to offer “as a human being and writer” to her work.

“He challenges people, and he kind of shakes them up to be their best, right?” Gorevan said. “He takes what he knows about writing and he offers it to us, and then we can take it or leave it. But I don’t know who would leave it.”

Saunders tells his students they should always feel like they aren’t a “real” writer because it forces them to push themselves. His writing method reflects his philosophy, and he considers it a form of meditation. He reads the words he wrote the day before and tries to just perceive and react to the words, rather than have conceptual thoughts about them.

Today, Saunders and his family live in California, but he returns to Syracuse multiple times each fall semester to teach the third-year workshop. He is always working on a new project but finds time to help his students whenever possible.

In October, Saunders met with all the MFA students and told them to email him personally if they had questions about anything. After he left, Dee made sure to tell the students that Saunders wasn’t offering to help them just as a nice gesture, but because he really wants to.

“If you contact him, he will answer,” Dee said. “He’s very generous with his time and with his expertise, and very supportive to young writers who were going through the same struggles that he still remembers going through.”

Published on November 13, 2024 at 11:38 pm