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Ursula K. Le Guin

CONVERSATIONS ON WRITING

^{with David Naimon}

IN MEMORIAM

Ursula K. Le Guin 1929–2018 • • •

The copyeditor used a red pen. Ursula a pencil. Pencil and pen had agreed and disagreed on this manuscript, which Ursula had handed over just a week before. We’d emailed about blurbs just days before. Everything seemed as it should. It was now my turn to chime in where Ursula and the copyeditor disagreed. I was in the midst of doing just that when I learned she’d passed away.

More than a week has gone by and I still haven’t been able to do my part. I read tributes to her by the greats—Gaiman, Atwood, Walton—finding myself without words.

I look again at Ursula’s—her enthusiastic yes!, her matter-of-fact I disagree. In these gestures I see how fully present she is, how completely she attends to the task at hand, and I realize that nothing is too small to contain the whole world, to bring forth Ursula’s powerful, opinionated, captivating self. The same Ursula who took on Google and Amazon on behalf of writers, who took on a boy’s club in science fiction and fantasy, who now insisted the word Earth—the planet, our planet—should begin with a capitalized “E. ”

She attended to the big and small in the same way, as part of the same fabric. Realizing this, I’ve tried to do the same, ministering to language as she herself would’ve done. I’m still grieving the dream of launching this book with Ursula, us together blessing its journey. I would’ve been grateful to partake in any project of hers, but I’m particularly honored to be a part of this one, one of the last of her long, remarkable life.

Among the many things that made Ursula stand out as a writer, was how she imagined we could live a better future.

It’s up to us now, to imagine the world we want, to create the language that reflects it, to honor Ursula by honoring the Earth she has attended to so well.

—David Naimon February 1, 2018

INTRODUCTION

Fear and Loathing in the Interview

The interviewers I fear most are the ones who’ve read what the publisher’s PR people say about your book, along with some handy pull quotes. They read one of these aloud and say in a sincere voice, “Now, tell us more about what you said here. ”

Such interviewers get on well with celebrities who have written a book. It doesn’t matter if the celebrity didn’t actually write the book, since the interviewer hasn’t actually read it. All that’s wanted is a sound bite.

“Tell us more about this” may also work with serious authors whose book contains information or a message they’re eager to repeat in order to make sure it gets delivered.

But it fails with authors who have worked hard to put something complicated into words as well as they possibly can. They’re happy to hear what they said read aloud, but not happy with the implication that it needs to be said differently or better. “What you wrote about the nightingale is so interesting, Mr. Keats, please tell us more?”

I’ve been fortunate enough to meet the polar opposite of this uninformed interviewer. A couple of sessions with Bill Moyers set my permanent standard of The Good Interview. It’s the one you wish could go on. It’s a conversation between people who have thought about what they’re talking about, and are thinking about it now in the light of what the other person is saying. This leads each of them to say things that they may be just discovering. They may not agree, may even have quite fundamental disagreements, but such differences, spoken and answered without belligerence, can take the conversation to a high level of intensity and honesty.