

Ursula K. Le Guin: By the Book - samclemens
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/09/books/review/ursula-k-le-guin-by-the-book.html

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teh_klev
BBC's Radio 4 did a feature to celebrate her 85th birthday back in April this
year:

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05pkmyg](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05pkmyg)

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joshmarinacci
That may be the worst author interview I've ever read.

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steveax
And sadly, such a wasted opportunity with such a terrific author. Of all the
interesting question the columnist could have asked, sigh.

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lucasnemeth
fun times.

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DonGateley
Good god that was uninteresting.

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tempodox
If you really want to botch an interview and bend over backwards to not ask
any pertaining (or even interesting) question, this is the way to go. NYT, I
want my time back.

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nornagon
What a cringe-worthy interview. It's clear the interviewer is asking from a
set list of (stunningly boring) questions, and despite Le Guin answering
nearly every question with "please ask a more interesting question", the
interviewer doesn't waver.

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100k
Pretty sure it was a standard list of questions - perhaps emailed.

Still, she is one of my favorite writers so it's interesting to read what she
likes reading.

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technomancy
I would like to think it was certainly emailed because I can't imagine a live
interviewer getting those kind of answers and continuing in that vein; I
really want to assume the only way that could have happened was if there was
no real back-and-forth between the interviewer and the interviewed.

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dang
It's a standard thing NYT does and it's pretty obvious that the questions are
pre-written and sent as a batch.

[http://www.nytimes.com/column/by-the-book](http://www.nytimes.com/column/by-
the-book)

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nornagon
Alas, what a lazy approach. An opportunity wasted.

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dang
I don't think that's fair. It's one of several standard types of interview,
and legit in its own right, as long as one doesn't confuse it with the others.
It's not like Ursula Le Guin hasn't done plenty of face-to-face interviews
too.

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technomancy
> It's one of several standard types of interview

Except it's not actually an interview. Call it a Q&A or something if you like,
but "interview" implies back-and-forth conversation.

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dang
That's fair enough re my usage of the word, but the article never calls itself
an interview, and the point that this is a well-known standard format holds.
Let's not dismiss things for shallow reasons.

