The Rumpus: Magazines should hire more fiction writers – specifically, George Saunders

In a two-part discussion on The Rumpus, Joshuah Bearman says that magazines should hire more fiction writers, and that George Saunders’ The Braindead Megaphone made him realize this. About Saunders’ essay on Dubai , Bearman writes: “Of course! Why did it take so long for someone to think of this? The almost supernatural-seeming and vaguely sinister techno-consumerist Potemkin fantasyland that is the real Dubai seems like a fictional place cribbed from a George Saunders short story, so why not send him there to blow his mind? The result was an incredible read, as Saunders attempted to resolve the tension between the reality and fantasy of the place out loud, or at least on the page.”