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Been thinking about Ursula K. Le Guin’s “The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction” a lot (again) recently.

Tonight, I came across Jeremy Keith’s journal post “Decision time” and instantly thought, “Yes, and I wonder if he’s read that essay…” I was going to recommend it, but wanted to read it again first to double-check that it is as relevant as I remember.

So I pulled Dancing at the Edge of the World off the shelf. I never noticed it before, but there’s a little legend in the Table of Contents. Feminism ♀, Social Responsibility ◯, Literature □, and Travel →. The essay is tagged ♀ and ◯.

The “Feminism” tag doesn’t surprise me at all. “Social Responsibility” though… it doesn’t surprise me either, but it’s an interesting way of labelling it. It’s right, of course. And the symbol tickled me, TCBOF has always felt like a circle.

Related: I made a print-on-demand t-shirt of my favorite phrase from TCBOF a little while back. If you’re interested LMK.