'One of the literary greats of the twentieth century' MARGARET ATWOOD 'A crafter of fierce, focused, fertile dreams' DAVID MITCHELL 'A literary icon' STEPHEN KING Hard times are coming, when we'll be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine real grounds for hope.We'll need writers who can remember freedom - poets, visionaries - realists of a larger reality . . . Words Are My Matter is a selection of Ursula K. Le Guin's best writing on literature, articulating with precision and passion her belief in the social and political value of storytelling - especially in hard times.In doing so, and with her characteristic spirit, Le Guin offers both a glimmer of hope and a set of operating instructions for a life lived with meaning.