Ursula K. Le Guin first told her audience that she wanted to share her award with her fellow-fantasy and science fiction writers, who have for so long watched "the beautiful awards" like the one she'd just received, go to the "so-called realists". She then went on to say:
"I think hard times are coming, when we will be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, and can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies, to other ways of being. And even imagine some real grounds for hope. We will need writers who can remember freedom: poets, visionaries--the realists of a larger reality. Right now, I think we need writers who know the difference between production of a market commodity and the practice of an art...The profit motive is often in conflict with the aims of art...We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable; so did the divine right of kings... Power can be resisted and changed by human beings; resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art--the art of words. I've had a long career and a good one, in good company, and here, at the end of it, I really don't want to watch American literature get sold down the river... The name of our beautiful reward is not profit. Its name is freedom."
Nina Munteanu is an
ecologist and internationally published author of novels, short stories and
essays. She coaches writers and teaches writing at George Brown College and the
University of Toronto. For more about Nina’s coaching & workshops visit www.ninamunteanu.me. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for more about her writing.
