Tzavta #13 George Saunders

GEORGE SAUNDERS - Guest Speaker

George Saunders is the author of critically acclaimed short story collections Pastoralia, In Persuasion Nation, and Tenth of December,which was nominated for the National Book Award in 2014.  A frequent contributor to The New Yorker, Harper's, McSweeny's, and GQ, he has been nominated for seven National Magazine Awards. He is an acclaimed American author whose works have been compared to those of Mark Twain, Thomas Pynchon, and Kurt Vonnegut. His first story collection, CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, was critically lauded and was a finalist for the 1996 PEN/Hemingway Award.

SHELLEY YOUNGBLUT - Moderator

Shelley Youngblut is the CEO & Creative Ringleader of Wordfest. She was the recipient of the 2020 Calgary Award for Community Achievement in the Arts and the 2018 Rozsa Award for Arts Leadership. She also won the 2008 Lifetime Achievement Award at the Western Magazine Awards. Youngblut was the founding editor of Calgary’s award-winning Swervemagazine and has created magazines for ESPN, Seventeen, Cosmopolitan, Nickelodeon, Western Living, and The Globe and Mail. A former pop-culture correspondent for ABC World News Now and Canada AM, she was also a frequent contributor to CBC Calgary’s The Eyeopener, The Homestretch, and Daybreak Alberta.