Remembering Influential Fantasy Author Ursula Le Guin

Born Ursula Kroeber Le Guin on 21st October 1929 in California, the daughter of an anthropologist and a writer, Ursula and her brothers were encouraged to read growing up. Le Guin spoke often of the happiness of her upbringing, and the environment that fostered her interest in literature.

At aged 11, Ursula submitted her first short story to the magazine Astounding Science Fiction, that story was rejected. The experience did not put her off writing, but it would be another ten years before she would attempt to submit something for publication.

In 1964 The Word of Unbinding was published, it would be the first of the Earthsea fantasy series, which complete contains six books and eight short stories. Throughout the years, Le Guin would receive much accolade for her writings, winning the Hugo and Nebula Awards in 1970 for The Left Hand of Darkness, an accolade she would repeat with her subsequent novel The Dispossessed, making her the only author to win best novel in both awards, twice for the same books.

In later life, Ursula Le Guin would work with audio and film, helping to adapt many of her best known stories, and stayed active in literary circles even in her later years. In 2009 she resigned from the Authors’ Guild over its endorsement of Google’s book digitisation project, accusing them of ‘dealing with the devil’.

Ursula Le Guin was and remains one of the best known fantasy authors of our time and calls authors such as Tolkien, Philip K. Dick, Lewis Carroll and early Asimov. A little known fact is that Philip K. Dick was in her high school class, though they did not know each other, despite the fact that they would both go on to become celebrated Sci-fi/Fantasy authors.

During her life Ursula Le Guin wrote 20 novels, and more than 100 short stories. We could wax lyrical about her life all day, but we’ll finish by saying she is one of the best known fantasy authors of our day, and possibly the best known female fantasy author of all time, and that’s some accolade.

The Wizard of Earthsea US
The Wizard of Earthsea UK

The Left Hand of Darkness US
The Left Hand of Darkness UK

Today we’re finishing with a poem by Le Guin from The Writer on, and at, her work.

Long ago when I was Ursula
writing, but not “the writer,”
and not very plural yet,
and worked with the owls not the sparrows,
being young, scribbling at midnight:
I came to a place
where the road turned and divided,
it seemed like,
going different ways,
I was lost.
I didn’t know which way.
It looked like one roadsign said To Town
and the other didn’t say anything.
So I took the way that didn’t say.
I followed
myself.
“I don’t care,” I said,
terrified.
“I don’t care if nobody ever reads it!
I’m going this way.”
And I found myself
in the dark forest, in silence.
You maybe have to find yourself,
yourselves,
in the dark forest.
Anyhow, I did then. And still now,
always. At the bad time.
When you find the hidden catch
in the secret drawer
behind the false panel
inside the concealed compartment
in the desk in the attic
of the house in the dark forest,
and press the spring firmly,
a door flies open to reveal
a bundle of old letters,
and in one of them
is a map
of the forest
that you drew yourself
before you ever went there.
The Writer At Her Work:
I see her walking
on a path through a pathless forest,
or a maze, a labyrinth.
As she walks she spins,