(Untitled)

[grrlpup]

On Monday sanguinity and I went down to Reed to see Ursula LeGuin speak.

• I was having all these maudlin thoughts about "this might be my last chance to see her," because she's in her eighties, but she seemed to have lots of energy and no air of frailty at all. She wore an entrancing sparkly silver scarf.
  
• We parked in the back parking lot by the rugby field,

Comments

[sandokai]

Neat-- I've been reading one of her books this week. A biographical one, the first in a series of three. I'm enjoying it, but its perspectives on race and gender are a bit earlier-generational...which I guess isn't surprising. Of course, this book was probably written in the '80s.

[hhw]

I'm not familiar with an autobiographical trilogy by UKL - what's the title?

Oops...

[sandokai]

Wow, now that I think about it my brain was confusing her with Madeline L'Engle-- I've been working with texts by both of them this week! Sorry about that!

Re: Oops...

[grrlpup]

Is it Summer of the Great-Grandmother you were reading? I was still in junior high when I read it, so I'd be curious to see what I made of her memoirs now. The subject matter didn't seem like it would mean much to a twelve-year-old, but I was really into L'Engle and read everything I could get my hands on.

I feel like her books are making a mini-comeback just in the last year or so, with new editions of Camilla and And Both Were Young.

[hhw]

She was born in October 1929, so she's actually "only" 80. which is technically in her 80s but really, only just. ::clings desperately to denial of inevitability::

Based on her comments elsewhere, I'm pretty sure she would have been referring to all unauthorized fanfic, and she is aware of at least some of the range of types out there. Authorized fanfic is ok -- she put a link on her website to a class project from an elementary school of a story based on her flying cats, for example. And she's worked with/given permission to people who have created pieces based on her works, such as a play based on The Left Hand of Darkness and a puppet show based on one of her children's books. I assume she has no problem with Star Trek novels that Paramount has authorized, or authors who do explicitly encourage fanfic of their own works. She definitely does not welcome "playing dolls" with her own characters and settings.

[grrlpup]

That fits well with what I was able to glean from two tries at the question and a collection of seemingly disparate answers. I remember her recommending reacting to a story by writing a (pointedly) different story of one's own, rather than altering the original.

[sooguy]

Thanks for the recap. Interesting.