Essays by Ursula K. Le Guin

Chronological

2008

• "Staying Awake: Notes on the Alleged Decline of Reading", Harper's Magazine (February 2008, pp. 33-38)

By title

• "Staying Awake: Notes on the Alleged Decline of Reading", Harper's Magazine (February 2008, pp.33-38)

• "Assumptions About Fantasy" (in Cheek and Jowl)
• "The Wilderness Within" (in Cheek and Jowl)
• "Re-Reading Peter Rabbit" (in Cheek and Jowl)
• "The Critics, the Monsters, and the Fantasists" (in Cheek and Jowl)
• "Cheek by Jowl: Animals in Children's Literature" (in Cheek and Jowl)
• "The Young Adult in the YA" (in Cheek and Jowl)
• "A Message About Messages" (in Cheek and Jowl)
• "Why Kids Want Fantasy" (in Cheek and Jowl)

• "Introducing Myself" (in The Wave in the Mind)
• "Being Taken for Granite" (in The Wave in the Mind)
• "Indian Uncles" (in The Wave in the Mind)
• "My Libraries" (in The Wave in the Mind)
• "My Island" (in The Wave in the Mind)
• "On the Frontier" (in The Wave in the Mind)
• "All Happy Families" (in The Wave in the Mind)
• "Things Not Actually Present: On The Book of Fantasy and J. L. Borges" (in The Wave in the Mind)
• "Reading Young, Reading Old: Mark Twain's Diaries of Adam and Eve" (in The Wave in the Mind)
• "Thinking About Cordwainer Smith" (in The Wave in the Mind)
• "Stress-Rhythm in Poetry and Prose" (in The Wave in the Mind)
• "Rhythmic Pattern in The Lord of the Rings" (in The Wave in the Mind)
• "The Wilderness Within: The Sleeping Beauty and 'The Poacher'" (in The Wave in the Mind)
• "Off the Page: Loud Cows: A Talk and a Poem About Reading Aloud" (in The Wave in the Mind)
• "Fact and/or/plus Fiction" (in The Wave in the Mind)
• "Award and Gender" (in The Wave in the Mind)
• "On Genetic Determinism" (in The Wave in the Mind)
• "About Feet" (in The Wave in the Mind)
• "Dogs, Cats, and Dancers: Thoughts About Beauty" (in The Wave in the Mind)
• "Collectors, Rhymesters, and Drummers" (in The Wave in the Mind)
• "Telling Is Listening" (in The Wave in the Mind)
• "The Operating Instructions" (in The Wave in the Mind)
• "'A War Without End'" (in The Wave in the Mind)
• "A Matter of Trust" (in The Wave in the Mind)
• "The Writer and the Character" (in The Wave in the Mind)
• "Unquestioned Assumptions" (in The Wave in the Mind)
• "Prides: An Essay on Writing Workshops" (in The Wave in the Mind)
• "The Question I Get Asked Most Often" (in The Wave in the Mind)
• "Old Body Not Writing" (in The Wave in the Mind)
• "The Writer on, and at, Her Work" (in The Wave in the Mind)

• "The Sound of Your Writing" with Exercise One: Being Gorgeous (in Steering the Craft)
• "Punctuation" with Exercise Two: I Am García Márquez (in Steering the Craft)
• "Sentence Length and Complex Syntax" with Exercise Three: Short and Long (in Steering the Craft)
• "Repetition" with Exercise Four: Again and Again and Again (in Steering the Craft)
• "Adjective and Adverb" with Exercise Five: Chastity (in Steering the Craft)
• "Subject Pronoun and Verb" with Exercise Six: The Old Woman (in Steering the Craft)
• "Point of View and Voice" with Exercise Seven: POV (in Steering the Craft)
• "Changing Point of View" with Exercise Eight: Changing Voices (in Steering the Craft)
• "Indirect Narration, or What Tells" with Exercise Nine: Telling It Slant (in Steering the Craft)
• "Crowding and Leaping" with Exercise Ten: A Terrible Thing to Do (in Steering the Craft)

• "The Space Crone" (1976) (in Dancing at the Edge of the World)
• "Is Gender Necessary? Redux" (1976)
• "Moral and Ethical Implications of Family Planning" (1978)
• "It Was a Dark and Stormy Night" (1979)
• "Working on 'The Lathe'" (1979)
• "Some Thoughts on Narrative" (1980)
• "World-Making" (1981)
• "Hunger" (1981)
• "Place Names" (1981)
• "The Princess" (1982)
• "A Non-Euclidean View of California as a Cold Place to Be" (1982)
• "Facing It" (1982)
• "Reciprocity of Prose and Poetry" (1983)
• "A Left-Handed Commencement Address" (1983)
• "Along the Platte" (1983)
• "Whose Lathe?" (1984)
• "The Woman Without Answers" (1984)
• "The Second Report of the Shipwrecked Foreigner to the Kadanh of Derb" (1984)
• "Room 9, Car 1430" (1985)
• "Theodora" (1985)
• "Science Fiction and the Future" (1985)
• "The Only Good Author?" (1985)
• "Bryn Mawr Commencement Address" (1986)
• "Woman / Wilderness" (1986)
• "The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction" (1986)
• "Heroes" (1986)
• "Prospects for Women in Writing" (1986)
• "Text, Silence, Performance" (1986)
• "Who is Responsible?" (1987)
• "Conflict" (1987)
• "Where Do You Get Your Ideas From?" (1987)
• "Over the Hills and a Great Way Off" (1988)
• "The Fisherwoman's Daughter" (1988)

Collections

• Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places (1989, Grove Press)
• The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction (1979, ed. Susan Wood, G.P. Putnam; 1989, Women's Press; 2nd edition published in 1992 by HarperCollins)
• Steering the Craft: Exercises and Discussions on Story Writing for the Lone Navigator or the Mutinous Crew (1998, Eight Mountain)
• The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader, and the Imagination (2004, Shambhala), winner 2005 Locus Award, best nonfiction
• Cheek by Jowl: Talks and Essays on How and Why Fantasy Matters (Aqueduct Press, April 2009) (winner, Locus Award, 2010, "Best Non-Fiction / Art Book".