Prominent Author and Amarillo Native George Saunders to Be Focus of WT Seminar

Copy by Chip Chandler, 806-651-2124, cchandler@wtamu.edu

CANYON, Texas — Registration is open now for a West Texas A&M University graduate class on a world-renowned author and Amarillo native.

“Seminar in Major Authors: George Saunders–His Work, Influences and Impact” will be offered online from 6 to 8:40 p.m. Mondays in the spring semester by Dr. Ryan Brooks, associate professor of English and codirector of graduate studies in English.

“Saunders is one of the most influential and celebrated, not to mention funniest and strangest, fiction writers in the world,” Brooks said. “We’ll examine his depictions of 21st century working-class life, among other topics, and consider how those depictions may have been shaped by his time in the Panhandle. His speculative fiction also crosses over into horror and science fiction, so we’ll be reading and discussing a wide variety of genres.”

Saunders, who was born in Amarillo and spent time as a master’s student in WT’s English program in the 1980s, will be the featured speaker for Amarillo College’s Creative Mind Lecture on April 4, to be co-presented by WT’s Distinguished Lecture Series and the Center for the Study of the American West’s Garry L. Nall Lecture in Western Studies.

The lecture will take place at 7 p.m. April 4 in Legacy Hall in the Jack B. Kelley Student Center on WT’s Canyon campus.

Saunders is the author of a novel, five collections of short stories, a novella and a book of essays. His 2017 novel “Lincoln in the Bardo” won the Man Booker Prize. The recipient of a 2006 MacArthur Foundation Genius grant, his work appears regularly in the New Yorker, GQ and Harpers Magazine. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and was named one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World by Time Magazine in 2013.

Brooks’ class will cover not only Saunders’ fiction and nonfiction writing, but also texts that influenced him, including Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse Five” and John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath,” as well as texts by writers influenced by Saunders, like Karen Russell and Charles Yu.

The seminar is open to students in the WT Graduate School.

For information, contact Brooks at 806-651-2484 or rbrooks@wtamu.edu.

Dr. Alex Hunt, CSAW director and WT’s Vincent/Haley Professor of Western Studies, also will incorporate several of Saunders’ works in his English classes in the spring semester.

Fostering an appreciation of the arts is key component of the University’s long-range plan, WT 125: From the Panhandle to the World.

That plan is fueled by the historic One West comprehensive fundraising campaign, which reached its initial $125 million goal 18 months after publicly launching in September 2021. The campaign’s new goal is to reach $175 million by 2025; currently, it has raised more than $150 million.

About West Texas A&M University

WT is located in Canyon, Texas, on a 342-acre residential campus. Established in 1910, the University has been part of The Texas A&M University System since 1990. WT, a Hispanic Serving Institution since 2016, boasts an enrollment of about 10,000 and offers 59 undergraduate degree programs and more than 40 graduate degrees, including two doctoral degrees. The University is also home to the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, the largest history museum in the state and the home of one of the Southwest’s finest art collections. The Buffaloes are a member of the NCAA Division II Lone Star Conference and offers 14 men’s and women’s athletics programs.

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