George Saunders Praises Minnesota and Connects Reading to Civic Life

# What happened George Saunders appeared at the University of Minnesota's Northrop Auditorium to converse with novelist and University of Minnesota professor Julie Schumacher as part of the Esther Freier Lectures in Literature Series. The conversation touched on Saunders's personal connections to Minnesota, his literary work, and a wider argument about how reading prepares people for civic life.

# Saunders's Minnesota ties

# Reading, community, and civic skill A central thread of the conversation was Saunders's insistence that deep reading trains people for nuanced, sustained public work. Drawing on the opening of his book A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, he described a "secret community of readers" who converse intimately through books. That shared interior experience becomes public when readers compare notes and hold each other to specificity and rigor.

Saunders argued that the habits formed by careful reading—staying with complexity, tolerating delayed revelation, and articulating interior experience—map directly onto the skills needed for political resistance and civic engagement. He suggested people who haven't done that close reading tend to rely on broad slogans, whereas what current public life demands is nuance and concrete detail.

# Empathy and communication The discussion included the familiar claim that reading builds empathy. Saunders connected empathy to the capacity to inhabit someone else's experience and then communicate that interior shift to others. That capacity, he suggested, undergirds the kind of civic conversation necessary in complicated times.

# Saunders's public profile and work The conversation placed Saunders's remarks in the context of his public career: he is the bestselling author of Lincoln in the Bardo and the author of numerous short stories. He has appeared on national late-night shows and runs Story Club, a widely read Substack on craft and writing. The talk with Schumacher brought together two established American writers and focused less on promotion and more on the cultural role of reading and literary community.

# What this means for Minnesota readers Saunders's message is a direct one for communities that already prize reading: sustained engagement with literature can strengthen civic capacity. Minnesota's winter reading season and high rates of readership make it fertile ground for the kind of reader communities Saunders described—places where shared reading can translate into shared civic action.

# Notable quotes

• "We will gladly hear anything positive you have to say about that," (interviewer)
• "It was a big deal, a very big deal," (Saunders on Minneapolis and St. Paul's actions)