Random House gives graduation speech the literary treatment
George Saunders’ recently celebrated commencement address delivered at Syracuse University is set to be published in spring 2014.
I wrote my essay. It was probably decent for an 18-year-old journalism nerd with a bad case of acne. But I never turned it in. It wasn’t stage fright. It wasn’t that I didn’t think it had a chance of winning. I probably just didn’t want to be judged by my peers.
It’s fitting, then, that one of the major themes of one of the great graduation speeches of all time is regret.
George Saunders, who delivered the convocation at Syracuse University this year, gave what some deem to be among the greatest commencement speeches ever.
His speech, titled “Congratulations, by the way,” will be published in book form by Random House in spring 2014, according to the Associated Press.
The New York Times‘ 6th Floor blog has the speech in its entirety here.
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