A Swim in a Pond in the Rain

by George Saunders

(“The writer can choose what he writes about,” said Flannery O’Connor, “but he cannot choose what he is able to make live.”)

A story is a frank, intimate conversation between equals. We keep reading because we continue to feel respected by the writer.

This has led to a general (and, I think, correct) notion that a writer’s beliefs should be kept out of his or her story.