Who better to talk about the unique power of telling stories than one of our great contemporary storytellers, Neil Gaiman? One deep way Neil Gaiman and Ursula K. Le Guin are kindred spirits is how they both share an abiding interest in the strange, uncanny relationship between truth and fiction, truth and myth, the imagination and the real, the fantastic and reality, and the ways we seem hardwired, from childhood onward, to be adept at finding the enduring truths within stories that others have “made up.” Today’s conversation, as the final one in the Crafting with Ursula series, serves a double purpose. Yes, we do a deep dive into word magic, into the power and purpose of creating and telling stories, into the spells they weave and why. But we also celebrate Le Guin, the intelligence and music of her words, her spells, by having Neil Gaiman, one of the most mellifluous and recognizable narrative voices today, read excerpts of Le Guin’s work for us, from A Wizard of Earthsea to The Lathe of Heaven to Always Coming Home.
Whether you’ve been following the Crafting with Ursula series from the beginning, or whether Neil Gaiman is what brought you here for the first time, don’t miss the many other science fiction and fantasy conversations within the main Between the Covers show. You can go to the show’s homepage and sort the archive for “SFF” and not only find the three conversations with Ursula K. Le Guin herself, but also conversations with many others including Ted Chiang, Jeff VanderMeer, N.K. Jemisin, China Miéville, Nnedi Okorafor, William Gibson, Sofia Samatar, Neal Stephenson, Marlon James, Jo Walton, Kelly Link, Daniel José Older, David Mitchell and more.
If you enjoyed today’s conversation consider transforming yourself from a listener to a listener supporter. Each supporter receives a resource-rich email with each episode, can join our collective brainstorm, our collective dreaming of who to invite as future guests, and there are a wide variety of other possible benefits from the bonus audio archive to rare Le Guin collectibles. Check it all out at the show’s Patreon page.
Finally here is the Bookshop for today’s conversation.
The post Crafting with Ursula: Neil Gaiman on Word Magic & The Power of Telling Stories appeared first on Tin House.
Danielle Dutton : Prairie, Dresses, Art, Other
Alexis Wright : Praiseworthy
Nam Le : 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem
Anne de Marcken : It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over
Canisia Lubrin : Code Noir
Diana Khoi Nguyen : Root Fractures
Álvaro Enrigue : You Dreamed of Empires
Mathias Énard : The Annual Banquet of the Gravediggers’ Guild
Tin House Live : Denis Johnson : 2003
Elle Nash : Deliver Me
Naomi Klein : Doppelganger : Part Two
Kate Zambreno & Sofia Samatar : Tone
Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore : Touching the Art
Bhanu Kapil : Incubation : A Space for Monsters
Colleen Burner : Sister Golden Calf
Kate Briggs : The Long Form
Lydia Davis : Our Strangers
Naomi Klein : Doppelganger : Part One
Tin House Live : Matthew Zapruder on Story of a Poem
Major Jackson : Razzle Dazzle
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Lit Society: Books and Drama
Ex Libris
Write The Book: Conversations on Craft
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Grimms’ Fairy Tales
Fresh Air
Myths and Legends