⭐ We have a different website for our Ohio bookstore + cafe! Visit it here. ⭐

Radio Waves daily blog by Two Dollar Radio indie book publisher


On the Dial | Small Beer Press



Ursula K. LeGuin, Words Are My Matter (Small Beer Press)

Small Beer Press is one of our most rebellious, zany, and frequently impressive publishers. Another mom-and-pop shop, Small Beer was founded and is run by Gavin Grant and Kelly Link, who embody the spirit of indie publishing in so many ways.

It is one of the great pleasures of publishing to get to know others in the community, and Kelly and Gavin are two generous, cool pillars of this community. Whether they're carrying an inflatable couch around Book Expo America to promote the publication of Benjamin Parzybok's novel Couch, donating 20% of their monthly book proceeds to Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, or publishing stellar books—such as Julia Holmes's superb novel Meeks and Lydia Millet's YA 'Dissenters' trilogy—Small Beer is a big deal.

Small Beer's most recent publication, a collection of Ursula K. LeGuin's non-fiction, is making a big splash. Titled Words Are My Matter, the book includes "talks, essays, introductions to beloved books, and book reviews." A profile in the New Yorker credits LeGuin with "breaking down the walls of genre" and "hand[ing] new tools to twenty-first-century writers working in... the place where the fantastic enters literature." These writers, the profile asserts, include Karen Joy Fowler, Junot Díaz, Jonathan Lethem, Victor LaValle, Zadie Smith, and David Mitchell.

A speech that LeGuin gave when receiving the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters appears in the collection, where she states:

“We need writers who know the difference between production of a market commodity and the practice of an art. Developing written material to suit sales strategies in order to maximise corporate profit and advertising revenue is not the same thing as responsible book publishing or authorship.”

Cheers to that.

Posted by Eric Obenauf on 31 October, 2016 On the Dial, Small Beer Press, Ursula K. LeGuin | 0 comments
Previous post Next Post

Comments

Let us know what you think here:

Hi there!

Two Dollar Radio is a family-run outfit founded in 2005 with the mission to reaffirm the cultural and artistic spirit of the publishing industry. We aim to do this by presenting bold works of literary merit, each book, individually and collectively, providing a sonic progression that we believe to be too loud to ignore. Check out the ABOUT US section to read more...

Radio Waves daily blog by Two Dollar Radio indie book publisher

Latest posts

  • Q+A with Zachary Pace about I Sing to Use the Waiting

    On January 23, 2024, we're thrilled to release Zachary Pace's debut book, I Sing to Use the Waiting: A Collection of Essays About the Women Singers Who've Made Me Who I Am. With remarkable grace, candor, and a poet’s ear... Read more →

  • Q+A with Christine Lai about Landscapes

    We're tremendously excited to share the news that on September 12, 2023, we will be publishing Landscapes, a debut novel by Christine Lai that brilliantly explores memory, empathy, preservation, and art as an instrument for recollection and renewal.In the English... Read more →

  • Q+A with Bennett Sims about Other Minds and Other Stories

    Bennett Sims' writing has won the Rome Prize for Literature and the Bard Fiction Prize. For Bookforum, Tony Tulathimutte called Sims “possibly the smartest and most inventive writer of his... generation,” while for LitHub Carmen Maria Machado says Sims is... Read more →