An Unexpected Encounter with Ursula Le Guin

On serendipity and rising to occasions

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An Unexpected Encounter with Ursula Le Guin

In my old job reading undergraduate applications for college admissions, I developed something of an eye-rolling attitude toward the word “serendipity.” One of the university’s supplemental essay questions asked students to write about their favorite word, and high school seniors from 2019–2022 were apparently really into the concept of serendipity. And fair play to ‘em. Even just noticing serendipitous occurrences takes enough openness to allow ourselves to meet happenstance halfway.

And as it happened, my trip to the Midwest this week coincided with the opening of my dear friend Dr. Tamara Ketabgian’s class’s exhibit about Ursula K. Le Guin’s visit to Beloit College in 1992. Featuring archival material and a stunningly “alive” wooden sculpture, this exhibit simultaneously portrays Le Guin’s interactions with Beloit’s people and celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of The Dispossessed. The timing was indeed serendipitous—I got to support my friend and her students, to see former colleagues I may not have run into otherwise, and to take the time to really look at these materials from Beloit’s amazingly rich college archives.

“The Wooden Woman”—and yes, there’s a LOT of fun backstory!

The exhibit features marked-up papers borrowed from students who had been in Le Guin’s writing workshop. Le Guin was entirely generous in her comments, but she did not hesitate to point out inconsistencies or moments when rough writing did not do justice to good ideas. In every instance, she treated these student writers as though they could and would rise to the occasion—that they could and would produce better writing through an iterative writing and critique process.

Le Guin began her residency at Beloit with this rare and unerring confidence in her students’ capacity to stretch and grow—even before she met them or read their writing. In a letter she sent to students (via English professor Tom McBride) about a month before she arrived at Beloit, she wrote, “One valuable effect of a workshop is finding that you can write well fast, if you have to. You will have to.”

You will have to. You will have to rise to the occasion. Even when you doubt your abilities. Even when circumstances feel prohibitive.

But lest Le Guin’s matter-of-fact directive feel like a writerly version of bootstrapping, let us not forget the belief in others’ potential that drives it. You will have to, and I believe you can do it.

I’m not Ursula Le Guin (obvs!), but I also believe you can do it—whatever “it” happens to be right now. And in my better moments in this fraught moment in history, I try to have faith that we all have the capacity to stretch and grow and rise to the occasions our shared humanity demands. So—thanks for the posthumous reminder, Ursula Le Guin!

—Tes

NEW November Podcast! Writing through turbulent times.

Tes and Sara discuss—from a place of upheaval and regrouping—what it looks like to continue doing your creative work when things around you are turbulent and hard.

*Schedule: November 22–December 8, 2024*

To join our sprints you must be a paid subscriber :)

Zoom links are below for paid subscribers.

• Sunday, November 17: asynchronous sprint on the Substack chat

• NEW! Monday, November 18, noon ET: Zoom writing sprint (75 minutes)

• NEW! Thursday, November 21, 8pm ET: social hour on the Substack chat

• NEW! Thursday, November 21, 9pm ET: Zoom writing sprint (75 minutes)

• Sunday, November 24, 4:30pm ET: Zoom writing sprint (75 minutes)

• NEW! SPECIAL! Monday, November 25, noon ET: special pre-holiday Zoom writing sprint (75 minutes)

• U.S. Thanksgiving: sending best wishes for strong digestion in both literal and metaphorical senses!

• Sunday, December 1: asynchronous sprint on the Substack chat

• Monday, December 2, noon ET: Zoom writing sprint (75 minutes)

• Thursday, December 5, 9pm ET: Zoom writing sprint (75 minutes)

• Sunday, December 8, 4:30pm ET: Zoom writing sprint (75 minutes)

What We’re Up To

Sara is keeping on keeping on.

Tes is recombobulating from an excellent trip to Chicago and Wisconsin—you can take the person out of academia, but you can’t take academia out of the person?