Talk:George Saunders

This  level-5 vital article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:Biography: Arts and Entertainment

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.
	This article is supported by the arts and entertainment work group.

Literature

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Literature, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Literature on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale.

United States: Texas Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject United States, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of topics relating to the United States of America on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the ongoing discussions. Template Usage Articles Requested! Become a Member Project Talk Alerts
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article is supported by WikiProject Texas (assessed as Low-importance).

Chicago Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Chicago, which aims to improve all articles or pages related to Chicago or the Chicago metropolitan area.
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Redirect information

As I found this page, I was expecting to see a page about George Sanders the English actor (note spelling). Perhaps a small redirect would be appropriate here and also a reverse one on the George Sanders page?

A Swim in a Pond just an essay??

I was surprised to see Saunders' 2021 book, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: in which four Russians give a master class on writing, reading, and life, listed at the end of an Essays and Reporting sub-sub-category. Is an entire book that is essentially a course in short-story fiction writing really just one essay, or just reporting? He clearly builds as he goes along, and it is more a course in writing than anything else--in fact, it's based on a semester-length course he's been teaching for 20 years.

I suggest it should have its own category, probably located above the Other category, following Short Fiction. In fact, since what the book is about is short fiction, that seems most appropriate. Also, unlike most criticism or essay collections, he includes the complete text of each of the seven stories being discussed--a substantially effective tool in a reader's understanding of the writing mechanisms he's analyzing.

I am questioning what the label should be for this subcategory. Any votes? Literary criticism. Writing instruction. Writing analysis and instruction. Short story analysis.

I came to this topic looking to see what Wikipedia has to offer about the book, and had to do a ctrl-f search to find anything. This book has enormous impact. Comments, please? Susanzwitter (talk) 16:09, 10 June 2023 (UTC)