Congratulations, by the way

At one point a geophysical engineer, MacArthur Fellowship winner George Saunders is an acclaimed writer of short stories, essays, novellas and children’s books. His work includes the story collections CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, a finalist for the 2006 PEN/Hemingway Award, Pastoralia and In Persuasion Nation. Tenth of December won the inaugural Folio Prize in the UK and The Story Prize in the US in 2014, as well as being shortlisted for the National Book Award. He has also won prizes for his bestselling children’s book The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip and has written a book of essays entitled The Brain-Dead Megaphone. George Saunders was listed as one of TIME magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2013. He currently teaches Creative Writing at Syracuse University, New York, and writes regularly for GQ, Harper's and the New Yorker, who in 2002 named him one of the ‘Best Writers Under 40’. He lives in New York with his family.