In recent weeks I’ve seen a discussion taking place around the names of literary awards, with many arguing that awards should not be named after people. One of those awards is the Tiptree. I haven’t wanted to say much about this, mainly because I’m in the middle of revisions for the book that ate my […]
Read More ...Margaret Atwood: The Testaments
For pure reading pleasure ‘The Testaments’, Margaret Atwood’s long-awaited sequel to “The Handmaid’s Tale,” lives up to every bit of the considerable pre-publication hype. Atwood’s original dystopian novel, published in 1985, ends like a Cold War thriller: the main character, Offred, escapes from Gilead, the Christian theocracy where as a “Handmaid” she is held in […]
Read More ...A #MeToo moment for Ian Buruma
Grievance, paranoia, and Ian Buruma Many observers in the Dutch press had a hard time understanding the fall of Ian Buruma. My explanation was published in Dutch in Letter&Geest on September 29, 2018. Ian Buruma is out. Our man in New York, the Dutchman who made his name in the English-speaking world with insightful books […]
Read More ...The Woman Who Went to Space as a Man
Writer-director Maureen Huskey’s play based on the life and work of James Tiptree Jr. premieres in Los Angeles, October 27, 2018. “Dodging in and out of reality, the play investigates gender, longing and creativity as self-exploration through one of the science fiction world’s greatest literary tricksters.” This play has been in the works for some […]
Read More ...Literary Arts Tribute to Ursula K. Le Guin
On June 13 in Portland, OR, Literary Arts brought a terrific lineup of writers together to speak about Ursula Le Guin’s life and work. The evening included family photos, clips from Arwen Curry’s documentary Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin, and a dragon at the end. The speakers remembered Ursula the teacher, builder of bridges, […]
Read More ...Sheila Heti: Motherhood
The narrator of Sheila Heti’s new novel Motherhood is in an agony of doubt. She’s in her late thirties. Does she or doesn’t she want a child? Why can’t she make this life decision? When she thinks of having a baby she balks. She’s afraid of giving up her freedom, and besides, how could she […]
Read More ...The day before her revolution
In The Village Voice I wrote about another aspect of Ursula, not the homebody but the writer and thinker ahead of her time. Before Ursula K. Le Guin, who died last week at age 88, goes to dwell among the stars — maybe near the constellation that bears her name — it’s worth remembering how […]
Read More ...Remembering Ursula K. Le Guin together
“How should we remember Ursula Kroeber Le Guin? Together,” Nisi Shawl writes. Like many others of Ursula’s friends and readers after her death, I wanted to honor her memory. I don’t think I’d ever worked and written as hard as I did that week, but I wanted to do something, and it seemed like the […]
Read More ...Remembering Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula Le Guin died unexpectedly on Monday, January 22, in the home in Portland, Oregon, where she lived with her husband Charles. After she asked me to be her biographer, several years ago, she and I had many long talks on the phone, met once or twice a year, and corresponded. We talked about my […]
Read More ...Mary Beard: Women & Power
For 4Columns this week, I wrote about Mary Beard and her terrific feminist essay “Women & Power.” Thank you to the unnamed friend whose advice I mentioned, and to another uncredited friend for …
Read More ...