Fiction, comedy and TV writer Jack Vening is a funny bloke. We caught up over Zoom to talk about George Saunders, writing humour, and how to elegantly devastate your readers.
In the course of our conversation Jacky mentions several authors he draws inspiration from, including Garielle Lutz, Donald Barthelme, Joy Williams and Benjamin Weissman. He recommends the episode featuring Roberto Bolaño’s Gomez Palacio by Daniel Alarcon on the New Yorker Fiction Podcast (which you can also read yourself here). We also talk about the excellent Story Club by George Saunders, and Jack’s own newsletter Small Town Grievances. The short stories of Jack’s that we talk about are After the stampede, published by Kill Your Darlings in 2020, Local Curses, published by Hobart in 2021, and Night Guard, published in The Nervous Breakdown in 2019.
Find out more about Jack, including a selection of his short stories, at his website.
Fiction, comedy and TV writer Jack Vening is a funny bloke. We caught up over Zoom to talk about George Saunders, writing humour, and how to elegantly devastate your readers.
In the course of our conversation Jacky mentions several authors he draws inspiration from, including Garielle Lutz, Donald Barthelme, Joy Williams and Benjamin Weissman. He recommends the episode featuring Roberto Bolaño’s Gomez Palacio by Daniel Alarcon on the New Yorker Fiction Podcast (which you can also read yourself here). We also talk about the excellent Story Club by George Saunders, and Jack’s own newsletter Small Town Grievances. The short stories of Jack’s that we talk about are After the stampede, published by Kill Your Darlings in 2020, Local Curses, published by Hobart in 2021, and Night Guard, published in The Nervous Breakdown in 2019.
Find out more about Jack, including a selection of his short stories, at his website.