Fantasy Literature - Signum University

Welcome to our guide on the Fantasy genre, where you will find tools to help you locate resources to further your research. We have guides for Fantasy in general (including Modern Fantasy), Harry Potter, J.R.R. Tolkien, any of the other Inklings, or Ursula K. LeGuin. Please note that the lists on these pages are not exhaustive lists on their topics. If you know of another good resource – or would like to see a page on another topic not currently included in this guide – let us know! Likewise, we would appreciate it if you would notify us of any dead links that you come across on these pages. Thank you!

General Resources

Selected Journals & Databases

General Sites

Modern Fantasy Authors

Harry Potter

General Sites

Selected Journals & Databases

Expert & Academic Sites

Fan Sites

The Inklings

General Sites

On C. S. Lewis

On Charles Williams

On Owen Barfield

Selected Journals & Databases

Expert & Academic Sites

J. R. R. Tolkien

General Sites

Language & Script Sites

Poetry Sites

Selected Journals & Databases

Academic & Expert Sites

Fan Sites

YouTube and Podcasts

Online Game Sites

Ursula K LeGuin

Author Sites

Ursula K. Le Guin (Official Website)
Ursula K. Le Guin Papers, circa 1930s-2018, Index to the Collection, University of Oregon Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives (index only, no full text).

Selected Journals & Databases

Mythlore – all articles about Ursula K. Le Guin (1976- ) (open access journal)
Science Fiction Studies – all articles about Ursula K. Le Guin (1973- ) (some articles open access; latest 3 years blacked-out without subscription)
Project Muse (access through Signum Library; check “Only content I have access to”)
JSTOR (access through Signum Library; select “Advanced Search,” then “Content I can access”)
Ada: A Journal of Gender & New Media Technology – Special Issue on Radical Speculation and Ursula K. Le Guin (open access journal)
Utopian Studies – Featured Discussion of Ursula K. Le Guin’s ‘Omelas’, Vol. 2, No. 1/2 (1991). (Available through
JSTOR)

Expert & Academic Works

Academia.edu – papers tagged Ursula K. Le Guin (some full-text available; also search by title, e.g. “Left Hand of Darkness,” “Earthsea,” etc.)
Approaches to the fiction of Ursula K. Le Guin by James W. Bittner
Communities of the Heart: The Rhetoric of Myth in the Fiction of Ursula K. Le Guin by Rochelle Warren (2001)
“Le Guin, Ursula K.” Encyclopedia of Fantasy (1997)
“Le Guin, Ursula K.” Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (May 2021)
ResearchGate – papers about Ursula K. Le Guin (some full-text available; on Google, search: site:researchgate.net ursula le guin)
The Farthest Shores of Ursula K. Le Guin by George Edgar Slusser
The New Utopian Politics of Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed, edited by Laurence Davis and Peter Stillman (Lexington Books, 2005) [352pp. book, free from editor]
Understanding Ursula K. Le Guin by Elizabeth Cummins (1990)
Ursula K. Le Guin by Harold Bloom (Modern Critical Views, 1986)
Ursula K. Le Guin by Barbara J. Bucknall (1981)
Ursula K. Le Guin by Charlotte Spivack (Twayne’s United States Author Series, 1984)

Features & Interviews

“Exploring Creativity: A Talk with with Author Ursula K. Le Guin” by TVAP (The Video Access Project) (1985) / The Creative Outlet, Inc.
“The Fantastic Ursula K. Le Guin” by Julie Phillips (The New Yorker, Oct. 10, 2016)
“The Subversive Imagination of Ursula K. Le Guin” by Julie Phillips (New Yorker, Jan. 25, 2018)
“‘[T]hey, Like the Child, Are Not Free’: An Ethical Defense of the Ones Who Remain in Omelas,” by Paul Firenze (Response: Journal of Popular and American Culture, November 2017).
“Unlocking the Full Brilliance of Ursula Le Guin’s Hainish Cycle” by Charlie Jane Anders (Tor.com, Feb. 25, 2019)
“Ursula K. Le Guin” by Choire Sicha (Interview Magazine, Sept. 4, 2015)
“Ursula K. Le Guin, Acclaimed for Her Fantasy Fiction, Is Dead at 88” by Gerald Jonas (New York Times, Jan. 23, 2018)
Ursula K. Le Guin: An Interview, Luna Monthly, No. 63 (1976)
Ursula K. Le Guin & Margaret Atwood conversation, Literary Arts (2010)
“Ursula Le Guin at 80” (BBC Radio 4)
“Ursula Le Guin at 85” (BBC Radio 4)
Ursula K. Le Guin, Avenali Chair in the Humanities” at the Doreen B. Townsend Center for the Humanities, UC Berkeley (2013) ←
“Ursula K. Le Guin: Literature and Otherness” by Maria do Rosário Monteiro (Faces of Eva, Dec. 7, 2018)
“Ursula K. Le Guin: Still Battling the Powers That Be” (WIRED Presents: Geeks Guide to the Galaxy, July 25, 2012)
“Ursula K. Le Guin Was a Creator of Worlds” by Julie Phillips (Humanities, Winter 2019)

Fan Sites

Essays by Le Guin

“American SF and the Other” by Ursula K. Le Guin (Science Fiction Studies, Nov. 1975)
“The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction” by Ursula K. Le Guin
“The Child and the Shadow” by Ursula K. Le Guin (The Quarterly Journal of the Library of Congress, April 1975, pp. 139-148)
“The Critics, the Monsters, and the Fantasists” by Ursula K. Le Guin
“The Golden Age” by Ursula K. Le Guin (The New Yorker, June 4 & 11, 2012)
“Introduction” from The Hainish Novels & Stories, Volume One by Ursula K. Le Guin (Tor.com)
“Introduction” from The Hainish Novels & Stories, Volume Two by Ursula K. Le Guin (Tor.com)
“A Non-Euclidean View of California as a Cold Place to Be,” by Ursula K. Le Guin (Fifth Estate, Spring 2010).
“Sisters and Science Fiction” by Karl Kroeber (1926–2009) (Library of America)
“Staying Awake: Notes on the alleged decline of reading” by Ursula K. Le Guin
“Ursula K. Le Guin Explains How to Build a New Kind of Utopia” (Electric Lit)
Ursula K. Le Guin accepts the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters at the 65th National Book Awards (November 19, 2014; YouTube video)

Fiction by Le Guin

“The Day Before the Revolution” (Library of America)
“Elementals” (Lightspeed Magazine, Jan. 2014)
“Imaginary Countries” (Library of America)
“The Island of the Immortals” (Lightspeed Magazine, Sep. 2011)
“It Was a Dark and Stormy Night; Or, Why Are We Huddling about the Campfire?” (Critical Inquiry, Autumn 1980, Vol. 7, No. 1)
“Mountain Ways” (Clarksworld, Mar. 2014).
“The New Atlantis” (Lightspeed Magazine, Mar. 2015)
“The Ones Who Stay and Fight” by N.K. Jemisin (Lightspeed Magazine, Jan. 2020)
“The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” (Utopian Studies, 1991)
“Sah-Harah” by Gheorghe Săsărman, translated by Ursula K. Le Guin (Lightspeed Magazine, Nov. 2014)
“The Silence of the Asonu” (Lightspeed Magazine, Dec. 2010)
“The Stars Below” (Lightspeed Magazine, Jul. 2013)
Ursula Le Guin short fiction in The New Yorker (requires subscription)

Poetry by Le Guin

Poetry by Ursula K. Le Guin (Official Website)
Poems by Ursula K. Le Guin: “Leaves,” “Six Quatrains” and “To the Rain” (Poetry Foundation)
Poems by Ursula K. Le Guin: “Maenads” and “Hymn to Time” (Poets.org)
“Two Poems by Ursula K. Le Guin” (“How It Seems to Me” and “McCoy Creek: Cattle”) (Literary Hub)
“Three New Poems by Ursula Le Guin” (“Bats,” Ancestry” and “Looking Back”) (Electric Lit)