Good morning,

Today’s Fem Friday is inspired by Ursula Le Guin, which in practical terms means it’s about the intersection of science and creativity.

Let’s start with a tribute to this amazing woman, who wrote more than 50 books. Unfortunately she is not this week’s Economist obituary so WARNING WARNING, this link contains some Neil Gaiman self-aggrandisment #content:

A pioneering feminist, Le Guin pushed at boundaries in both her writing and her campaigning. In a famous letter in 1987, she declined to write a blurb for an anthology containing no writing by women, saying that the tone of it “is so self-contentedly, exclusively male, like a club or a locker room”, ending: “Gentlemen, I just don’t belong here.”

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jan/23/ursula-k-le-guin-sci-fi-fantasy-author-dies-at-88

I, and at least one other subscriber, had a cry at her poem in the excellent newsletter Pome this week. It’s very lovely, perhaps you’d like to cry at it as well:

from Finding My Elegy

on a dark face that is not human. I will follow you.

Ursula Le Guin, 2012

http://tinyletter.com/pome

One thing that’s always nice to see is responses to fan letters, and there’s lots to enjoy in this one from Ursula Le Guin to Janelle Shane. I particularly like the bracketed “Today’s Advice”, as though Le Guin gave one piece of advice per day and it was Janelle’s luck that her letter was in the right place at the right time.

https://twitter.com/JanelleCShane/status/955977852083580928

Janelle Shane does her own interesting things at the intersection of science and creativity, training neural nets to do weird and funny things. I’m linking here to the program that generates first lines of novels, but there is lots to read on this fun blog:

it developed a curious fondness for a line by Jacqueline Carey about not being a cuckoo’s child. Everything, for some reason, was a cuckoo’s child.

http://aiweirdness.com/post/168051907512/the-first-line-of-a-novel-by-an-improved-neural

Have a creative and a happy Friday,

Alex.