George Saunders, who published his novel Lincoln In The Bardo earlier this year, might be the best fiction writer we’ve got working right now. Jason Isbell, meanwhile, is one of the best writers of rock lyrics currently working. So someone at GQ had the excellent idea to sit the two of them down together. In a new GQ video, Saunders and Isbell spend an hour chopping it up in an Oakland recording studio. It starts out with Saunders trying to get Isbell to teach him to write a great song, and it moves on to heavier things like the way white privilege works and having panic attacks while reading great writing on planes. Watch it all unfold via GQ.

Isbell’s great album The Nashville Sound is out now on his own Southeastern label.