George Saunders (Extended) | Late Show Book Club

The Late Show Pod Show with Stephen Colbert

CBS

Tv & Film, Comedy, Comedy Interviews

4.4 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 23 March 2026

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Bestselling author and Booker Prize winner George Saunders talks about obsessively revising his work, seeing things from a dead character's perspective, and why works of fiction can help people make sense of difficult realities. And in this EXCLUSIVE extended interview, hear Stephen and George talk more about writer's block and their favorite Flannery O'Connor short stories, only on The Late Show Pod Show! His latest book, "Vigil," is available now. Stick around for an even more in-depth interview with The Late Show Book Club, when our bookworm producer Ali chats with George Saunders about the music that inspires him to write, the Russian short story he thinks will change your life, and his favorite advice for aspiring writers.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Your favorite true crime series, 48 Hours, is back for a new season, and so is the official
0:05.5	after show podcast, Postmortem. Every Monday, listen to a new episode of 48 hours, and then
0:11.2	join me, 48 Hours correspondent Anne-Marie Green on Tuesday for a new episode of Postmortem,
0:17.2	where we bring you a closer look at each case. This case was eye-opening on so many different levels.
0:24.1	Follow and listen to 48 hours on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts.
0:31.0	It's the Late Show Pancho with Stephen Colbert.
0:39.7	Folks of all ages,
0:42.0	my next guest is the number one New York Times
0:45.3	best-selling Booker Prize and National Book Award-winning author of
0:48.7	13 books. His latest is Vigil.
0:52.0	Please welcome back to the Late show, George Saunders.
0:59.9	George, welcome back.
1:01.5	It's so nice to be here.
1:02.5	This picture right here, I want to have this in my mind forever.
1:06.9	Oh, yeah.
1:07.8	I wouldn't mind having this one in my mind forever either. You know, I think this is the fourth time I've been on here, fifth time maybe, and I want to say one thing. You come here nervous, of course. I do. A writer does because of what? And the people that you have on a show from the producers, all the technical people, so sweethearted, and it just makes it such a beautiful experience. And I know it comes from the top down. So thank you for that. Well, that's lovely to say. And I completely agree. Incredibly
1:31.9	lucky to work with this amazing group of people. Congratulations. In November, you were awarded
1:39.2	the National Book Foundation Book Foundation Prize. Your writing gives me so much,
1:46.3	gives the world so much. What does writing give you? Well, you know, my process is really
1:53.0	revision heavy. So revision heavy? Yeah, I'm doing it over and over day after day. And in that process,
1:59.0	what works for me is to imagine the reader as being
2:02.7	kind of better than me, like smarter and more worldly and more compassionate and funnier. So you're
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from CBS, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of CBS and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.