I remember getting A Wizard of Earthsea from the local children's library when I was young. I loved it. Le Guin set a standard for what I think of as fantasy.
I used to make my local childrens librarian order the series book by book from the larger branch near me when I was around 8... I was a weird kid, but at least the librarian seemed to think I was cool.
my favorite fact about Earthsea is that Ursula Le Guin knew effectively nothing about sailing, the extent of her nautical knowledge being when she accidentally sank a rented 9-foot boat in Berkeley
'write what you know' is in terms of what spiritual truths you know of yourself, rather than something made without love or passion, something you fail to see yourself in
When people say this they think 'if you were a fireman, write a book about being a fireman!' But what it actually means (I know YOU know this btw) is 'write the emotional truths you know'. Like what is Earthsea *really* about? Lots of things, really, but not magic, the education system or dragons.
Since beginning of 2025, FearedDaughter did all the Earthseas, just did all of His Dark Materials with a brief break for the latest hunger games... Potent stew!
Someone just came into our shop (https://reachandteach.com) to get the second book in the series and ordered all the rest. My husband told the customer about LeGuin's wonderful "world building" style.
Comments
you don't have to write what you know, at all, if you don't want to