Nebula Awards Showcase 2004 by Vonda N. McIntyre

Author:Vonda N. McIntyre
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Group US

MOLLY GLOSS

Molly is the author of The Jump-Off Creek, The Dazzle of Day (winner of the PENWest Fiction Prize), and Wild Life (winner of the James Tiptree, Jr. Award). Wild Life was chosen for “If All of Seattle Read the Same Book.” Her short story “Lambing Season” was a 2003 Hugo nominee. She was a student of Ursula K. Le Guin’s in a 1981 writing workshop.

Her Web site is at http://www.mollygloss.com/.

A FEW THINGS I KNOW ABOUT URSULA

MOLLY GLOSS

Upon meeting Ursula Le Guin for the first time, more than a few people have been heard to say somewhat sheepishly, “I don’t read science fiction, but I’ve heard your work is good.” Of course it can be embarrassing when you’re introduced to an actual writer of one of those books you know you ought to have read but haven’t—there’s just no graceful way to say, “I’m sorry I haven’t gotten around to reading your books yet.” These people might be thinking it’s more politic to say that they don’t read science fiction. There is some trouble with this tack, though, if it’s meant as an explanation, as an apology, to a writer known above all as a writer of science fiction. Here’s the problem: When someone says they don’t read science fiction, they seem to be saying they haven’t, in fact, read any science fiction. They seem to be saying they’ve crossed off the whole field, not on the basis of considerate, careful reading of the texts, but on the basis of bad press, of which science fiction has had more than its share.

This makes me think of the great number of people who take a kind of perverse pride in declaring their dislike of California, not because they’ve actually been there, or because of anything they’ve read in the travel books, but because of, well, bad press, of which California too has had more than its share. I’ve known some Californians who, in certain situations, denied they were from California, and science fiction writers who believed that the only way to get literary respectability was to deny the science fiction label. But one of the things I know about Ursula is that she writes science fiction, although not only science fiction, and never has seen a reason to apologize for it. And she is (though long an Oregonian) originally from California, and never has been shy about saying so.

Here is something else I know about Ursula. Not only does she try to make her own judgments on the basis of considerate, careful reading of the texts and travel books, but sometimes she embraces the very thing receiving bad press. She has been, for instance, and is even now a flaming liberal, an outspoken feminist, an abortion rights activist, a civil libertarian, a loud and unswerving opponent of censorship, an environmentalist, and an enemy of the OCA, which is Oregon’s local pack of ultra-right wing antigay paranoiacs.

I’m guessing these are not the reasons she was named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America, though they very well could be.

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