Donations in Memory of Ursula K. Le Guin

Fri 26 Jan 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Ursula K. Le Guin loved this world — among others! — and rather than flowers, we are making a donation in her name to the non-profit closest to her heart, the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.

We also decided that for each print copy of her books sold through our website in the first three months of this year we will donate:

—  $10 from each print copy of Ursula K. Le Guin’s Words Are My Matter

—  $5 from each print copy of her translation of Angélica Gorodischer’s Kalpa Imperial

We will send the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge a check in April and will include any reader’s name who bought books and would like to be listed.

Direct donations in Ursula’s name can also be made here: Malheur Field Station or here: Audubon Society of Portland (specify that the donation is for Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and Harney County).

Further reading: I took heart from this Metafilter thread and some of the tributes gathered here.


Sarah Rees Brennan: Audio + Events in Montreal & Boston

Thu 25 Jan 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

I am posting this which I had foolishly left in “drafts” instead of publishing. Argh.

We are delighted to announce that Tantor has picked up audio rights to Sarah Rees Brennan’s In Other Lands and will release their audio edition on April 3.

The second lovely announcement is that Sarah will be over here in North America and will be doing two readings: the first at Argo Bookshop in Montreal & the second at the Brookline Booksmith in Brookline, Boston:

Events

Feb. 1, 4:00 p.m. book club
7:00 p.m. Argo Bookshop, 1915 Rue Sainte-Catherine O, Montréal, QC H3H 1M3, Canada

Feb. 5, 7:00 p.m. 279 Harvard Street Brookline MA 02446-2908 Tel: 617-566-6660 Fax: 617-734-9125
(with Kelly Link, Cassandra Clare, and Holly Black)

 


Her Words: the Best Words

Tue 23 Jan 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

“This is the truth. They stood on the stones in the lightly falling snow and listened to the silvery, trembling sound of thousands of keys being shaken, unlocking the air, once upon a time.”

Later on maybe I will have more to say and be able to post more of Ursula K. Le Guin’s words. Right now I am too sad and so I am only posting these last few lines from the late, damn it all, Ursula K. Le Guin’s story “Unlocking the Air,” one of many stories and novels of hers that I love.

Ursula K. Le Guin, 21 October 1929–22 January 2018. Much admired, much missed.


Austin Woerner’s translator origin story

Mon 22 Jan 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

How did a kid from Wellesley, Massachusetts become a Chinese-to-English translator lecturing at Duke Kunshan University in Shanghai?

Find out in this short video of Austin Woerner telling the story of his life in translation and his relationship with Su Wei, author of The Invisble Valley.


Sooner or Later Some Good News

Thu 18 Jan 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin


Ghost Brides and Very Big Snakes

Thu 4 Jan 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

John Crowley did us the kindness of reading our forthcoming translation of Su Wei’s The Invisible Valley and says:

“Su Wei’s The Invisible Valley is a remarkable work, pungent, funny, and mind-widening. Austin Woerner’s translation is nearly invisible: it erases all barriers of strangeness and places the reader deep within a Chinese experience that comes to seem as familiar to us as our own daily round — if ours too had ghost brides and very big snakes.”

(In case you missed it, John has a new website, here, which isn’t quite a deep dive but will be a very enjoyable browse for any Crowley reader.)