Steering The Craft
   Ursula K. Le Guin
  1998 The Eighth Mountain Press, Portland, Oregon USA
   ISBN: 0933377460


Exercises and Discussions on Story Writing for the Lone Navigator or the Mutinous Crew.

One of the great writers of the 20th century offers an exhilerating workout for writers of narrative fiction & nonfiction. Steering The Craft is a handbook full of warm-up exercises such as "I Am Gorgeous" for reading aloud; writing a chaste paragraph of descriptive narrative prose without adjectives or adverbs & "Changing Voices" - writing the same story from different perspectives.

Ursula Le Guin muses on a subject dear to my ear: "...The sound of the language is where it all begins and what it all comes back to. The basic elements of language are physical: the noise words make and the rhythm of their relationships..."

What I like about Steering The Craft is that I'm seriously studying along with this fabled author & suddenly there I am, brow frowning, mind minding every precious word & she stops me on a dime with a pun of the first water!

Ursula Le Guin's craft weaves a wake through the Sargossa Sea of words & thoughts, showing us how to write by writing it right, with rhythm, rhyme & resonance. She invites us to engage with some of the greatest narrative writers of the English language - Jane Austen, Marsden's Northern Paiute Language of Oregon & Virginia Woolf to name only a few.

On the Subject Pronoun and Verb she quips: "...I find many people who yatter on about banning the passive voice don't even know what it is. They have confused it with the verb to be (which grammarians so sweetly call "the copulative")."

As this is a workbook - there are some in depth appendices, a sound glossary & oodles of exercise formulas. Steering The Craft can be worked alone, however, it would be a lot more fun if you were to gather a handful together & follow the guidelines so ably laid down.

A quietly important, useful & informative textbook for writers wishing to flex the muscles of their minds. You know a writer? This would be a superb gift!

Royalties from the sale of Steering The Craft will go to support the Flight of the Mind Writing Workshops for Women, and Soapstone, a Writing Retreat for Women. Flight of the Mind, 622 Southeast 29th Avenue, Portland OR 97214

Ursula K. Le Guin's opus is vast & varied. Many of her titles have passed into our collective memories & include:
Novels: Always Coming Home; The Earthsea Books; The Lathe of Heaven; The Left Hand of Darkness; Planet of Exile; Malafrena, etc.
For Children: Leese Webster; A Visit from Dr. Katz; Fish Soup; Jane on Her Own; The Catwing Books, etc.
Criticism: Dancing on the Edge of the World; The Language of the Night
Screenplay in Book Format: King Dog
Poetry & Translation: Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching: A Book About the Way and the Power of the Way; The Twins, the Dream/Las Gemelas, El Sueño (with Diana Bellessi); Wild Oats and Fireweed; Wild Angels.
Chapbooks: No Boats; Walking in Cornwall; Art of Binditsu; Findings.
(10/15/00)

Rebecca