Science Fiction Writers A to Z: Ursula K. Le Guin
My author of the letter “L” is :
Ursula K. Le Guin
I have read quite a lot of her but not half as much as I should ( yes, imitating Tolkien is okay with one of the absolute foremothers of Science Fiction and Fantasy) … because she has written a huge ginormous lot of books and stories and essays!!
The most recent is another one of my writing books. I didn’t do any exercises, just read and thought about writing, and I highly recommend her books:
Steering the Craft by Ursula K. Le Guin.
Because of this, and the other writing books I have been reading, I am actually regaining a more critical and personal eye on my own reading! I am rediscovering my opinions and quite frankly, refining my tastes again.
But I digress!
Here is her official site:
http://www.ursulakleguin.com/
If you go into her site, you will find a wonderful quote from Ode to A Nightingale by Keats…and there is a planned documentary on Ms. Le Guin.
Yes I’ll digress again.
One of the issues about reading other’s writing and watching movies and shows… have rediscovered thanks to reading of Damon Knight, and Le Guin et al, is a sense that there are more stories than just conflict, conflict conflict, and making 3-d characters…there are moral and ethical dimensions, and to quote Ms. Le Guin…other than conflict there is::
Relating, finding, losing, bearing, discovering, parting, changing.
Steering the Craft by Ursula K. Le Guin, page 146 The Eight Mountain Press
I know I especially love those who tell stories of discovering, and changing.
Also, Ms. Le Guin really likes Virginia Woolfe, and I love Virginia Woolfe, ergo, hello! It was great to read Woolfe’s amazing talent in various examples to set up some of the exercises in the Steering the Craft book.
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the selfsame song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that oft-time hath
Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
Ode to A Nightingale by Keats
This joins the quote of Martha Graham’s in my profile.
Lovely!
And oddly enough, this quote is a delightful echo of another writer’s book on writing I am reading now- Ray Bradbury’s Zen in the Art of Writing…
Ursula K. Le Guin
I have read quite a lot of her but not half as much as I should ( yes, imitating Tolkien is okay with one of the absolute foremothers of Science Fiction and Fantasy) … because she has written a huge ginormous lot of books and stories and essays!!
The most recent is another one of my writing books. I didn’t do any exercises, just read and thought about writing, and I highly recommend her books:
Steering the Craft by Ursula K. Le Guin.
Because of this, and the other writing books I have been reading, I am actually regaining a more critical and personal eye on my own reading! I am rediscovering my opinions and quite frankly, refining my tastes again.
But I digress!
Here is her official site:
http://www.ursulakleguin.com/
If you go into her site, you will find a wonderful quote from Ode to A Nightingale by Keats…and there is a planned documentary on Ms. Le Guin.
Yes I’ll digress again.
One of the issues about reading other’s writing and watching movies and shows… have rediscovered thanks to reading of Damon Knight, and Le Guin et al, is a sense that there are more stories than just conflict, conflict conflict, and making 3-d characters…there are moral and ethical dimensions, and to quote Ms. Le Guin…other than conflict there is::
Relating, finding, losing, bearing, discovering, parting, changing.
Steering the Craft by Ursula K. Le Guin, page 146 The Eight Mountain Press
I know I especially love those who tell stories of discovering, and changing.
Also, Ms. Le Guin really likes Virginia Woolfe, and I love Virginia Woolfe, ergo, hello! It was great to read Woolfe’s amazing talent in various examples to set up some of the exercises in the Steering the Craft book.
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the selfsame song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that oft-time hath
Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
Ode to A Nightingale by Keats
This joins the quote of Martha Graham’s in my profile.
Lovely!
And oddly enough, this quote is a delightful echo of another writer’s book on writing I am reading now- Ray Bradbury’s Zen in the Art of Writing…