On Tuesday 18th October, we’ll discuss Ursula Le Guin’s thought-provoking essay on storytelling, community, and her call to move beyond “the killer story” to the novel as “a medicine bundle, holding things in a particular, powerful relation to one another and to us.”
I don’t even care. I’m not telling that story. We’ve heard it, we’ve all heard about all the sticks and spears and swords, the things to bash and poke and hit with, the long, hard things, but we have not heard about the thing to put things in, the container for the thing contained. That is a new story. That is news.
Ursula Le Guin, ‘The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction’
Text (Reading)
- Ursula Le Guin, “The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction” (1986: read online at The Anarchist Library)
Time and Place
- Tuesday 18th October 2022, 1 pm
- In person, Arts Lecture Room 237
Looking forward to seeing you soon! This event is run by Dorothy Butchard and Toria Johnson (d.butchard@bham.ac.uk and t.johnson@bham.ac.uk). Please email us if you have any questions, or if you’re coming for the first time and would like to introduce yourself – but you’re also welcome to just turn up in any week!
About
Page Breaks is an informal weekly reading group within the Department of English Literature. We meet weekly in term-time, and this year we’re trialling a return to in-person meetings with tea, coffee, and biscuits. All welcome!