Just a heads up, this episode does have some strong language.

Has ambition ever led you astray?

I think the answer is no.

And I tell my students, you know, if you have ambition, the worst thing you can do is deny it in an attempt to be a good person.

If you took the name off it, it's kind of a love for life.

It's kind of an aspiration to bring out the best in yourself.

I'm Rachel Martin, and this is Wildcard.

The show where cards control the conversation.

Each week, my guest answers questions about their life.

Questions pulled from a deck of cards.

They're allowed to skip one question

and to flip one back on me. My guest this week is George Saunders. It's funny, the state of mind

year in when you're writing, I am, it's like kind of, you can be really beautiful and pure

and concept-free, and I'll be hit a nice moment in the story, make a nice fix.

And a little voice will go, oh, the New Yorker's going to love that, you know.

And then yeah, okay, welcome to the table.

Now get out of the, you know.

George Saunders is considered one of the master storytellers of our time.

He uses humor and empathy to draw readers into characters and situations that stick

deeply in the imagination.

He also seems to me like a guy totally preoccupied with the liminal space between the living

and the dead. And I dig this because I am also preoccupied with said in between space.

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