34 Comments
Sep 23, 2022·edited Sep 23, 2022

I love this: two humble, thoughtful, good people talking about stories and the writing process. It suddenly dawns that this is one of the most talented writers in the world talking with his own editor, and they are still just that: two humble, thoughtful, good people talking about stories.

I was once sitting at my parents’ breakfast table and realized a Baltimore oriole (bird, not baseball player) was sitting on a branch right outside their window. My first reaction was wonder at its magnificent orange color and the fact that I was actually seeing an oriole, which is rare where I live. But my second reaction, which felt even better than the first, was that this was a regular … bird. It acted like a bird and seemed to enjoy hopping around in my parents’ tree for 15-20 minutes. I was just happy to be part of that ordinary extraordinary moment. That’s a little the feeling I have about watching this interview. It is extraordinary but basically comes down to two very good, thoughtful people talking about the writing process.

Expand full comment

I love the notion of writing for your (not the) perfect reader. My aunt is that reader for me - she has exquisite taste & so if she loves something I’m writing I know I’m on to something good. Now off to share this video with her (she discovered StoryClub & pointed me toward it after we both devoured ‘A Swim...’)!

Expand full comment
founding

Thanks for this video, George - it was great to see the 'other half' of the creative team. I think sometimes it's easy to forget they're there, or to kind of imagine them as a nameless/faceless/technical-only component in the publication machine, but watching the two you engage reminded me of the faint, but indelible, fingerprints an editor, producer, conductor can leave on a creative work. In particular (and maybe because of the name 'Andy'), I was reminded of Andy Wallace (the music producer) who has produced some of my all-time favourite albums and classics in their own right - Soup, Nevermind, King for a Day, And Out Come the Wolves, Evil Empire - and found myself imagining how different those albums would have been without his influence. How the tiniest of changes, or conversations, or inclusions can make a piece feel more cohesive, or bigger, or (I don't know) *more* in some way. It also reminded me of how you're frequently talking about leaning harder into the corners of a story, and maybe that a good editor is someone who helps us to do that, but not so hard that we (and the story) topple over...

Expand full comment

Loved this conversation, and to read of your gratitude to Andy, G. Where would we be without our editors? Humbling but true.

Expand full comment

The love, friendship, and respect you have for Mr. Ward shines through in the interview, and, of course, your written comments. This must be a good feeling to know. Thanks.

Expand full comment

Hey George. I know you're super busy, but if you want a nice little break, you may enjoy Simon Rich's New Yorker piece "History Report" (Sept 5 issue), in which a great grandson asks his great grandfather questions about what he did to try to save the earth from destruction. Not exactly "Love Letter," but some similarities. (I've a feeling others have already pointed you toward this piece, but maybe not.)

Hope the buildup to your new book's release is going well. Very much looking forward to reading the stories that will be new to all of us, and--of course--to seeing you in person when you're at Zipper Hall here in Los Angeles.

Expand full comment

I love hearing about your process. In a truly selfish way, it opens my mind to a different way of thinking or working. Thank you for sharing so much of your incredible mind.

Expand full comment

I like the turnips on the wall behind Andy.

Expand full comment

I am looking forward to reading Liberation Day. You are so lucky to have a fine working relationship with a skillful compassionate editor. You describe how many years you have worked together, and I realize that it is takes time to develop insight into each other's process. Also, I applaud your bringing your book to Story Club. I always buy the books of the writers I come in contact with locally even though their subject matter may be alien to me. I have so much respect for writers who support themselves and their families with their writing. My husband is a landscaper/nursery owner. He starts every year by borrowing money from the Farm Credit Bureau and earns his way back into the black with every sale. No one gives him a paycheck. He is very hard working, but unfortunately he has never worked out as my editor. Just a different sensibility. So, I just wish to say that through Story Club you are now a "local" author to me, so I happily pre-ordered your book. Your generous exploration of aspects of the writing process have been a great gift to me. Thank you, George!

Expand full comment

‘A feeling of confidence and hope and a dedication to the work’s best self’

That says everything about the perfect editor. So wonderful to hear this as sometimes editors and critics, perhaps unintentionally, can break a writer’s spirit which as we all know is so fragile in the first place.

Love reading about your collaboration with your editor.

Expand full comment

The high regard that you and Andy hold for each other is obvious in the video; he's an editor and friend one can hope to find at least once during a lifetime. How have those unusual adventures he's encouraged you to take shown up in your writing? Maybe that will be answered to some degree in the new book. Thank you for sharing this meaningful part of your life. It's such a gift to be a part of this group of subscribers.

Expand full comment

Beautiful, everyone should have such an excellent and truly compassionate partner in crime.

Expand full comment

Great to see this partnership between George and Andy, writer and editor. The mutual respect and the relationship. I've been thinking quite a bit lately about where to put my focus -- on writing or editing. I don't think I have energy for both. Both are huge.

I wonder if Andy Ward also writes?

I've done quite a bit of editing, in the smaller realms of self-published books and in writing groups and classes and so on. It is so deeply satisfying to be filled with a writer's vision, and help her more fully realize it. It's a gift in its own right, not a consolation prize. There is the relationship aspect to be considered also and the approach to giving feedback and etc. But the rewards are all -- right there. Compared to writing, and only in a way.

Writing is - oh it's so iffy. Do I have anything to say? Does anybody want to hear what I have to say? How do I reach them? Is my way of saying it engaging, textured, surprising, filled with verve - or something else that gives pleasure or satisfaction to readers. Such as I experience when reading wonderful writers like George or - in non fiction fields - Carlo Rovelli as an example, _Helgoland_. Ed Yong, _An Immense World_etc. Or the poet Fiona Benson, new to me - her book _Ephemeron_ is simply astonishing.

Well, I've a community writer's meeting online to go to so - I'll read something and be with writers reading... and then be with the writer side of the equation. Which is not an equation of course!

Expand full comment
Sep 23, 2022·edited Sep 23, 2022

I appreciated hearing about an epistalory story, because in my MFA collection, I include such a story -- a young military veteran trying to cope with the traumatic stress that he has emerged since he has been home, and his mother directs him to a series of letters that she saved from his father writing from Vietnam, and how he felt like he was falling apart mentally, which led him to abandon his family when he was discharged.

Additionally, a more recent story is also based on a dream in which I was at a costume party in which the host greets me in a marbled hall with gold chandeliers and dressed in a powdered wig and wearing the finery of an 18th Century titled royalty. As he approached, I saw that his nose resembled a pig snout, and in my horror reaction he calmly explains that he was the victim of a botched medical practice. When I awoke, I set out to figure out how a surgeon could manage to deliver such an outcome, with the first thought being it was done deliberately as an act of revenge. And that began the story path, discovering a place, time, and circumstance in which a doctor wanted revenge on a patient.

Expand full comment

What a lovely interview & how nice to see your face as you tell us another "writing" story. "That's what I'm learning as a writer." Wow. It's a gift to hear that. I'm sorry to have been in absentia but...there was a 5 week bathroom reno here which reminded me of your moving business & I loved that you ate Five Guys three times in a matter of weeks. I felt less guilty devouring a McD's filet o fish a number of times. 😎

Expand full comment
Sep 23, 2022·edited Sep 23, 2022

'You never know where stories are going to come from' + 'I wrote the draft between 3 and 5 am ... and then worked on it for six months'.

Just two salient snippets of immediate (no- claim to being verbatim) recollection from watching and listening to a captured dialogue lasting a little over eight minutes.

Thanks George, for sharing ... and adding further to my realisation that over the course of the 67 years I've passed, so far, here on the planet I've written little in the way of fiction but built up a body of memories which daily rise in a container dam that, more than remaining simply available to recall at short notice, is now rising to the point where it's high time to begin to release them in a dam burst of dreams which morph into the vital stuff of fair to middling, or possibly even fine, short stories.

Rich posting George, rich posting ... long may such continue ... and oh yes (having intended but omitted to add) persist in their tendency to be 'Liberating' ... looking forward to finding my pre-order has materialised in my Kindle Library.

Expand full comment