Words Are My Matter

Ursula K. Le Guin has published twenty-one novels, eleven volumes of short stories, four collections of essays, twelve books for children, six volumes of poetry and four of translation, and has received the Hugo, Nebula, Endeavor, Locus, Tiptree, Sturgeon, PEN-Malamud, and National Book Award and the Pushcart and Janet Heidinger Kafka prizes, among others. In recent years she has received lifetime achievement awards from World Fantasy Awards, Los Angeles Times, Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association, and Willamette Writers, as well as the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Grand Master Award and the Library of Congress Living Legends award. Le Guin was the recipient of the Association for Library Service to Children's May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture Award and the Margaret Edwards Award. Her recent publications include three survey collections: The Found and the Lost: The Collected Novellas; The Unreal and the Real: The Selected Short Stories; and The Complete Orsinia: Malafrena, Stories and Songs (Library of America) as well as a new collection of poetry, Late in the Day. She lives in Portland, Oregon, and her website is ursulakleguin.com.

Table of Contents Foreword Talks, Essays, and Occasional Pieces The Operating Instructions What It Was Like Genre: A Word Only a Frenchman Could Love "Things Not Actually Present" A Response, by Ansible, from Tau Ceti The Beast in the Book Inventing Languages How to Read a Poem: "Gray Goose and Gander" On David Hensel's Submission to the Royal Academy of Art On Serious Literature Teasing Myself Out of Thought Living in a Work of Art Staying Awake Great Nature's Second Course What Women Know Disappearing Grandmothers Learning to Write Science Fiction from Virginia Woolf The Death of the Book Le Guin's Hypothesis Making Up Stories Freedom Book Introductions and Notes on Writers A Very Good American Novel: H. L. Davis's Honey in the Horn Philip K. Dick: The Man in the High Castle Huxley's Bad Trip Stanislaw Lem: Solaris George MacDonald: The Princess and the Goblin The Wild Winds of Possibility: Vonda McIntyre's Dreamsnake Getting It Right: Charles L. McNichols's Crazy Weather On Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago Examples of Dignity: Thoughts on the Work of Jose' Saramago Arkady and Boris Strugatsky: Roadside Picnic Jack Vance: The Languages of Pao H. G. Wells: The First Men in the Moon H. G. Wells: The Time Machine Wells's Worlds Book Reviews Margaret Atwood: Moral Disorder Margaret Atwood: The Year of the Flood Margaret Atwood: Stone Mattress J. G. Ballard: Kingdom Come Roberto Bolan~o: Monsieur Pain T. C. Boyle: When the Killing's Done Geraldine Brooks: People of the Book Italo Calvino: The Complete Cosmicomics Margaret Drabble: The Sea Lady Carol Emshwiller: Ledoyt Alan Garner: Boneland Kent Haruf: Benediction Kent Haruf: Our Souls at Night Tove Jansson: The True Deceiver Barbara Kingsolver: Flight Behavior Chang-Rae Lee: On Such a Full Sea Doris Lessing: The Cleft Donna Leon: Suffer the Little Children Yann Martel: The High Mountains of Portugal China Mie'ville: Embassytown China Mie'ville: Three Moments of an Explosion David Mitchell: The Bone Clocks Jan Morris: Hav Julie Otsuka: The Buddha in the Attic Salman Rushdie: The Enchantress of Florence Salman Rushdie: Two Years, Eight Months, and Twenty-Eight Nights Jose' Saramago: Raised from the Ground Jose' Saramago: Skylight Sylvia Townsend Warner: Dorset Stories Jo Walton: Among Others Jeanette Winterson: The Stone Gods Stefan Zweig: The Post Office Girl The Hope of Rabbits: A Journal of a Writer's Week