Keith Gessen (George T. Delacorte Assistant Professor of Magazine Journalism) interviewed author George Saunders about his newest book A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, a literary master class on what makes great stories work and what they can tell us about ourselves—and our world today.

Saunders, the Booker Prize-winning author of Lincoln in the Bardo, is known as one of the masters of American fiction. But his newest bestseller is an unusual and inspiring nonfiction study: a master class on what makes a great short story work. Paired with stories by Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Gogol, the seven dazzling essays in this book explain fiction techniques–and movingly explore the ways in which stories can reconnect us with ourselves and others. In this presentation, Saunders speaks with New Yorker contributor and novelist Keith Gessen about fiction, teaching, and living.