Ursula K. Le Guin – Space Crone

As you will have discovered I write a lot. Whether that makes me a “writer”, I don’t know. I am certainly a reader and one with an interest in writing, and here is one of my favourite writers. Ursula Le Guin is one many people’s favourite writers. The fiction is great and if you haven’t read “The Left Hand Of Darkness”, you need to, whether science fiction is your “thing” or not, just for its strange and wonderful account of being between genders, and what love’s got to do with it. Before she died she worked with editors on this, a collection of her gender-related writings. For non-binarists, fluidarians, transophiles and genderists this is a regular treasure trove. In the collection of writings here you will find lovely insights into the politics of disorder and genetic selfishness up against inner voices and listening to the body. You will be told that a woman is not a failed man, but told in an ironic and funny speech which, as so often with her writing, is wrapped up in an even, intuitive, conversational, generous, closely-felt, considerate, grounding style which you immediately relate to and trust. A lot in this collection is about writing, wise words from a great writer, but however much you may say that you’re not a writer, these words are for you, because writing is an act of self-expression. There is a lovely section about “Being Gorgeous” which can just as easily apply to dressing or dancing as it does to using words. This is all about language really, how it limits us and how it liberates us. And the advice to go for “accurate, vivid, highly selected detail,” is advice for life and not just for making texts. If you are a writer, particularly an aspiring trans-writer, just reading how Ursula Le Guin speaks to us through writing will teach you so much about how to say who we are. Men come in for a lot of stick in these pages. This is almost inevitable, because male dominance and the male principle are among the ruling conditions of our times, and also because of men’s frequent failure to do what she suggests as the way forward through our quarrel with ourselves – “offer your experience as your truth.” But wherever we are in the gender landscape this book will give us insights we need. Ursula L Guin died not so long ago at the fine age of 89 and few people have offered such a great example of creative ageing. Our trans universe can often seem as if it belongs solely to the young and beautiful but even a short exposure to her accumulated wisdom will confirm that gendered thinking ripens and blossoms with age.