Live Their Dreams: A Celebration of Ursula Le Guin and Harlan Ellison
This year saw the loss of two of our great science fiction and fantasy authors, Ursula K. Le Guin and Harlan Ellison. We present a round-up of articles, media, and library materials to help you connect with these great talents.
One of the most immersive ways that Le Guin explored the PNW was through her novel Always Coming Home and the companion electronic-folk album Music and Poetry of the Kesh. You read that right. Electronic-folk. Le Guin actually created a language in which to write the poetry featured on the album. Louis Pattison details the process of writing and recording the album, which you can listen to below, in his article "In the ’80s, Ursula K. Le Guin & Todd Barton Recorded an Imaginary Civilization."
Ursula Le Guin
“People who deny the existence of dragons are often eaten by dragons. From within.”Ursula Le Guin is a name invoked in sacred whispers by members of the Pacific Northwest literature community. She embodied our region while she pushed the boundaries of what it could be. Many of her novels, novellas, and short stories were expressly set in or inspired by the PNW, including The Lathe of Heaven and "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" (chances are, if you've taken a writing class at TVCC, you've had a chance to read this one!) A far-reaching interview with her can be found in Beaver's Fire by George Venn.
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Wave in the Mind: Talks & Essays on the Writer, the Reader & the Imagination
One of the most immersive ways that Le Guin explored the PNW was through her novel Always Coming Home and the companion electronic-folk album Music and Poetry of the Kesh. You read that right. Electronic-folk. Le Guin actually created a language in which to write the poetry featured on the album. Louis Pattison details the process of writing and recording the album, which you can listen to below, in his article "In the ’80s, Ursula K. Le Guin & Todd Barton Recorded an Imaginary Civilization."
Ready to inhabit Le Guin's world? Check her out...
Harlan Ellison
The ability to dream is all I have to give. That is my responsibility; that is my burden. And even I grow tired.
― Harlan Ellison, Stalking the Nightmare
Chances are, Harlan Ellison had a hand in your favorite sci-fi, and you didn't even know it. The Man from U.N.C.L.E.? Check. The Twilight Zone? Yep. Star Trek? Only one of the most beloved episodes of the original series. I've said that Ellison is a sci-fi writer, but as Richard Sandomir notes in his obituary, Ellison would deck me for that.
So we'll let Ellison and his work speak for himself. Here, a radio play of his most famous sort story, "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream," spine-tingling and starring Ellison himself:
And here, "Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman," a story widely anthologized and another favorite text of our English department.
Live his dream. Check him out...
Submitted Stardate 47634.44 by your friendly neighborhood reference librarian, Kelsea
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