Ursula LeGuin making rare public appearance in Ottawa

And I GOT A TICKET!

Where is the gloating smiley when you need him?



That's actually better. I'm too busy dancing to gloat.

Apparently the Ottawa International Writers' Festival just kept inviting her and inviting her until she finally said yes. She will cap off the whole festival, which says a lot. There are a LOT of big-name authors presenting. Literary/genre/non-fiction, established authors, debut authors, something for everyone.

www.writersfestival.org

OK, I confess. It felt kind of good to make everybody else envious for a change. It's usually me drooling in vain.

But I promise to take notes. And pictures, if it's allowed.

Badducky, in the local newspaper clipping (now on my fridge door, of course) they said she rarely appears in public anymore at all, and it took several years of asking and the increasing reputation of the Festival here (part of said reputation being really good treatment of authors) to get her to come.

And two days earlier, R.J. Sawyer is doing a book launch and birthday party here in town. It never rains but it pours. Plus I should hopefully be meeting with a debut MG fantasy author I met in the comment trail of an agent's blog a little while ago.

Seeing as I missed Guy Gavriel Kay last time he came around, I'm making it a duty to go to these things. One must suffer for one's art.

I do believe LeGuin has a website, but I forget where exactly. I lifted the bibliography off it a while back to assist me in reading through her work. I will confess to liking her later work somewhat less. She's been touting non-linear plots and frankly, I think Aristotle had a better idea. Which in no way will prevent me from going to see her and having to exert iron self-control to stop from acting like a teen-age fan girl. I hope she'll be up to autographing a few books.

badducky said:

I liked Lavinia quite a lot.

I hope I'm that awesome when (if...?) I reach that venerable age.

Click to expand...

I haven't read that one yet. Searoads was a disappointment as a novel. It was really a collection of short stories, and if I'd read it that way, I probably would have enjoyed it. But it was a novel, and the pieces didn't have enough coherence for it to work for me. I should reread it with a different mindset.

I'll report back.

I just read the mind meld post on who are the best female SFF writers, and her name was the most frequently mentioned by a long shot. A giant, for sure.