>> David Kipen: Tobias Wolfe
[phonetic] said something to you,
and who's to say whether he remembers it or not.
>> George Saunders: Right.
>> David Kipen: Do students -- do teachers know
when what they're saying
is incredibly meaningful?
Or I guess not at Syracuse perhaps, but other
MFA programs incredibly painful to a student?
Do you remember, you used a great
phrase, incredible teaching moments.
>> George Saunders: Mm-hmm.
I think you can feel it.
Because some, you know, one
of the best things we do is
after the workshop we have a conference,
we have an hour-long conference,
and that's when you can really sort of relax.
>> With each student -- after
the student's work is workshop.
>> George Saunders: Right.
But then we go into the office and
we say well how did that go for you?
And that's when --
>> And we cry.
>> George Saunders: Yeah.
We both cry.
>> Sobbing happens.
>> George Saunders: But in that
moment sometimes you can, you know,
I remember one time having a young man
who was really imitating David
Foster Walls, which isn't unusual.
And he did a -- he was doing a pretty good job.
>> Mary Karr: We see a lot of it.
>> George Saunders: Yeah.
But he was doing a good job.
So it was interesting to, you know, you
don't want to say that in class maybe,
but afterwards you say well,
how do you feel about this?
Well I like it.
Okay. You know, and I said do you --
and then you can kind of work
your way to saying now do you know
that for any reader reading this,
certain connotations are going
to arise, like David Foster Wallace.
And the first -- yeah, I'm pretty sure.
Okay, now how do you feel about that?
Well I think I'm doing something different.
Alright. What is it?
No, no, seriously.
And he does think he's doing something
different, and he probably is.
So then you can go to the line to line
stuff and say okay, to me it sounds a lot
like him, let's work you off of that.
You don't want to sound like anybody else.
Let's now look at this little section, this
section you don't sound like him at all.
And then you have a teacher moment where
he kind of goes yeah, I don't like sounding
like David Foster Wallace, you know?
I know I do, but I don't know what else to do.
Then you can say well there you
go, there's your [inaudible].
So that -- and you can feel that
in the energy between the two
of you for sure, yeah, definitely.
