Words Are My Matter: Writings About Life and Books, 2000-2016, with a Journal of a Writer's Week
Written by Ursula K. Le Guin
Narrated by Laural Merlington
4/5
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About this audiobook
"We need writers who know the difference between production of a market commodity and the practice of an art. Developing written material to suit sales strategies in order to maximize corporate profit and advertising revenue is not the same thing as responsible book publishing or authorship." *
Le Guin is one of those authors, and this is another of her moments. She has published more than sixty books ranging from fiction to nonfiction, children's books to poetry, and has received many lifetime achievement awards, including the Library of Congress Living Legends award.
* From "Freedom," a speech in acceptance of the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.
Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula Kroeber Le Guin (1929-2018) was a celebrated author whose body of work includes twenty-three novels, twelve volumes of short stories, eleven volumes of poetry, thirteen children’s books, five essay collections, and four works of translation. The breadth and imagination of her work earned her six Nebula Awards, seven Hugo Awards, and SFWA’s Grand Master, along with the PEN/Malamud and many other awards. In 2014 she was awarded the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, and in 2016 she joined the short list of authors to be published in their lifetimes by the Library of America.
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Reviews for Words Are My Matter
61 ratings5 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5An incredible collection of writing on writing from this most penetrating and profound of writers. The world needed voices like hers. I found much inspiration here, even in the thoughtful book reviews.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018) had a chip on her shoulder, as becomes evident in her late-in-life collection of essays, speeches and reviews “Words Are My Matter” (2016).Regarded as one of the best writers in the science fiction/fantasy genre, Le Guin's beef was getting stuck in that particular box and, worse, that that box has never been highly regarded in literary circles. The better literary publications and literary critics don't give much attention to fantasy and science fiction. Le Guin thought she deserved better, and she was probably right."The word genre came to imply something less, something inferior, and came to be commonly misused, not as a description, but as a negative value judgment," she said in a speech she gave in Seattle in 2004. "Most people now understand 'genre' to be an inferior form of fiction, defined by a label, while realistic fictions are simply called novels or literature."She puts it more succinctly and sarcastically in an essay called "Le Guin's Hypothesis," "So. Literature is the serious stuff you have to read in college, and genre is what you read for pleasure, which is guilty." Similar comments pop up here and there throughout the book.In that Seattle speech she said, "Some 'literary' novelists have performed amazing contortions to preserve their pure name from the faintest taint of genre pollution." In her book reviews she named names, including the likes of Margaret Atwood. Jose Saramago and Jeanette Winterson. About the latter, she complained, "Winterson is trying to keep her credits as a 'literary' writer even as she openly commits genre" in “The Stone Gods.” She lets H.G. Wells off the hook because he wrote his classic stories like “The Time Machine” before there even was a genre.It is not clear whether Le Guin was really critical of those who "commit genre" without ever getting charged with the crime or simply envious of them. She got stuck in the genre ghetto and was never able to escape.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A nice compendium of non-fiction pieces. In her book reviews, Le Guin is always a fair and perceptive judge, though I felt there was too much plot exposition in some of them. The miscellaneous essays/speeches are mostly great, especially the searing piece on her pre-Roe-vs-Wade abortion, and the charming essay on the strange house she grew up in and its architect. The forewords introduced me to a few books I like the look of and a few I don't but it's hard to read them without having the book itself to hand. The last bit, an account of a week at a women's-only writers' retreat off the coast of Washington, is pretty dreary but very short.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5It was a pleasure discovering this selection of nonfiction (2000-2016) by Ursula K. LeGuin. Her writing is elegant and wonderfully insightful. Both the book reviews and book introductions give one much to digest and authors to anticipate. There is an underlying trace of bitterness regarding authors neglected through the limits of current publishing.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Excellent insight into the creative process of writing by the author of "The Word for World is Forest," and "Left Hand of Darkness." Superb inspiration for writers and for women.