Words Are My Matter

"One of the literary greats of the twentieth century" — Margaret Atwood

"A crafter of fierce, focused, fertile dreams" — David Mitchell

"A literary icon" — Stephen King

Hard times are coming, when we'll be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine real grounds for hope. We'll need writers who can remember freedom — poets, visionaries — realists of a larger reality...

Words Are My Matter is a selection of Ursula K. Le Guin's best writing on literature, articulating with precision and passion her belief in the social and political value of storytelling — especially in hard times. In doing so, and with her characteristic spirit, Le Guin offers both a glimmer of hope and a set of operating instructions for a life lived with meaning.