A book can carry a reader to a land outside of time.

Likewise, the reader carries the ideas in their mind, shaping them through the lens of their own experience.

But how? And why?

Communication, memory, meaning, and more are pulled apart and played with in “Telling is Listening,” a new collection of essays by Ursula K. Le Guin, published by local small press Winter Texts.

As always, Winter text’s publisher Conner Bouchard-Roberts has crafted an art object out of paper in honor of one of the greatest writers of the Pacific Northwest.

In this case, the work is not Le Guin’s fiction for which she’s famous or the poetry she focused on towards the end of her life. Instead, Bouchard-Roberts has selected 20 talks and essays to show one of her lesser known sides.

“She was a deep thinker, but she also has a way of articulating very dense ideas with a clear, clean line,” Bouchard-Roberts said.

To enhance the homage, Bouchard-Roberts’ publisher’s note contains a story from his own pen that feels as though he’s channeling Le Guin from beyond the grave.

In his story, a man succumbs to the role of librarian, as though haunted by books and by fate, just before the “Raids” begin and he’s forced to take what he can to safety.

The character could be Bouchard-Roberts himself. After all, he’s built a library of sorts within the Green Room Bar & Bookshop much like the man in the story who builds shelves as the space continues to fill.

The essence of this introductory tale boils down to one line which is the story of Winter texts as much as the collection. As the main character arrives safely with what books he managed to save, he finds that, “the words care and carry were so closely linked as to be one gesture.”

Winter texts often uses paintings old enough to be in the public domain for their covers, like “Seal Rock, California,” by Albert Bierstadt …

PIECES OF THE PAST

The essays are organized chronologically giving a sense of the author’s growth over time, but there is an invitation to readers to explore the work in their own order.

“I recommend people jump in wherever they find a topic. She’s weaving through time and you should feel free to weave through time,” Bouchard-Roberts said.

In the titular essay, Le Guin explores communication itself, showing the failure of language models that reduce it to a mechanical process. Instead, she finds it to be more organic, like amoeba sex.

As you know, amoebas usually reproduce by just quietly going off in a corner and budding … but sometimes conditions indicate that a little genetic swapping might improve the local crowd, and two of them get together, literally, and reach out to each other and meld their pseudopodia into a little tube or channel connecting them … they literally give each other inner bits of their bodies, via a channel or bridge which is made out of outer bits of their bodies … This is very similar to how people unite themselves and give each other parts of themselves — inner parts, mental not bodily parts — when they talk and listen.

She goes on to explore micro-expressions on faces that people listening feed back to speakers, a language all its own, with a power much different from that of written communication. In the end, Le Guin seems to say that neither written or oral communication is necessarily better, but are incredibly different ways of working with ideas.

This first edition of this essay also highlights flaws in written communication with a minor misprint — the final few paragraphs missing. Bouchard-Roberts, however, is correcting that.

“I’ve started printing inserts for Page 199, Point 5,” he joked. “I’ve got egg on my face; I’ll wear it proudly. That is a great example of indie publishing.”

A wood-block carving by Lydia Vadopalas specifically commissioned for this collection ushers the reader out the door at the exit of the book.

WORKING WITH WONDER

He’s been working with Theo Downes-Le Guin, son of Ursula and the literary executor of the deceased author’s estate, for years now. The two have spoken on the phone and met in person to discuss the publications on a number of occasions and at this point, he considers Downes-Le Guin a friend.

“I think we’re — for the most part — on the same page about a lot of the stuff, a lot of what has been neglected and what could be highlighted,” Bouchard-Roberts said.

Winter texts does not own the copyright on any of Le Guin’s material. Instead, Bouchard-Roberts has developed a relationship to her work all his own, printing the author’s lesser known but still important pieces.

“I would like to keep them all in sort of a series because they all inform each other,” he said. “It’s kind of this cool, overlapping mycelial effect that hopefully we can get to eventually.”

Since Le Guin spent her final years in pursuit of poetry, Bouchard-Roberts has highlighted this by ending the book with a poem which is set apart from the essays by a wood-block print commissioned by local woodworker Lydia Vadopalas.

“I love that they’re a part of the book and also not a part of the book. I also like that they’re giving Le Guin a kind of goodbye,” Bouchard-Roberts said.

Bouchard-Roberts and Vadopalas have worked together on a number of projects, finding their own flow to bring out the essence of authorship into a visual representation.

“I pick a poem, or I pick a selection of the writing, and she does her riff on it and we go back and forth a little bit,” Bouchard-Roberts said.

“For this one, I wanted it to feel like a door, as an exit to the book,” he added.

For the first run, 300 editions have been printed; many of Winter texts’ publications are rarities due to their small runs.

“I max out my own capacity of being able to keep track of things at about that point,” Bouchard-Roberts joked.

Still, he hopes to continue printing Le Guin’s work, one way or another.

“I will keep the metaphor of carrying. I will keep carrying her words and trying to bolster that and make art with it. As long as the estate finds me a reasonable collaborator and wants to play with me,” he said.

The book can be found at the Green Room Bookshop & Bar inside The Castle, at Imprint Books in downtown Port Townsend, and online at wintertexts.com.