I interviewed george saunders

How do you end up writing stories about polar bears stuck in a Cheetos commercial in which they are hit in the head with an axe over and over? In other words, do you set out to write bizarre or funny things, or do you have a different purpose?
Why, is that weird or something? Ha ha! No—in that story, as I remember it, I just set out to try and tell a whole story using only TV commercial vignettes. That was really about it. I don't know why, except I thought it would be hard. And it was! I have this idea that almost any idea, if you dwell on it long enough, will eventually do the work of "real" literature. Stories are about starting here and going there—the meaning comes from the structure and the change over the course of the story, not the "validity" or verisimilitude of the initial concept. So even if you're writing about that polar bear—I mean, you're not, not really. You're writing about certain changes in a consciousness, which happens to be, apparently, embodied in a polar bear. Wow. That's a weird sentence. And I didn't even get to the part about the axe in the head yet.

read the whole interview here.

I love george saunders' work very, very much. but I tried to keep the questions more on the "professional" side and not ask something along the lines of, "HOW THE HELL DO YOU WRITE SUCH AWESOME STUFF".

but yeah. I've been a huge fan ever since reading this. have a look. I defy you not to like this story.