Inspired by the quoted conversation with @vogelbeere and the photograph of "Le Guin's desk" that is going around, I am sharing an archival photograph of Ursula K. Le Guin at her desk. This is from 1969. Background and thoughts in thread. The child in the photo is Theodore. https://twitter.com/vogelbeere/status/1308501093228457984

Last year, when I was writing the retrospective of Le Guin's poetry, I decided to get an archival photo that would remind me of her. I got this one off eBay from a seller who specializes in archival photos.

The photographer is Wes Guderian. The photo was taken for The Oregonian, where it was published with a short description on October 5, 1969. I will post the back of the photo with an alt-text in the next tweet. This image fascinated me, and I was even more fascinated by the text.

"MOTHER... Ursula K. Le Guin, one of many outstanding Portland women authors of books for children, writes in her attic, is sometimes inter[rupte]d by son Ted, 5, who is writing his own science book..." /cont'd

"... Mrs. LeGuin's "Wizard of Earthsea" fantasy was chosen one of Notable Children's books." This is the pasted description of this photo from the Oregonian, published on Oct 5, 1969.

You can see how I feel this description from the Oregonian is an exercise in misogyny.

Le Guin wrote for children, of course. However, it is not accurate even in 1969 to describe her as "one of the many outstanding Portland women authors of books for children." in 1969, she published Left Hand of Darkness, arguably her most celebrated book. Prior to that -

- she published not just The Wizard of Earthsea (1968), btu also novels Rocannon's World (1966), Planet of Exile (1966), City of Illusions (1967), poetry, and short stories for adults.

Ursula is depicted here with her five year old son, writing "his own science book" and the title "MOTHER..." focuses our attention on Ursula's motherhood and her writing for children, which is important, but it does not acknowledge the full scope of her work.

As a parent of a child who often visits me (or jumps around, etc) when I am working, I nevertheless found this image endearing :)

The desk, clearly, is the same desk as the one @vogelbeere posted in the first quoted tweet; this is in an attic of her house in Oregon.

It's clear that she has not written some of her early masterpieces sitting at her father's desk in Berkeley (that's the one which is making the rounds.) She wrote in an attic. It's rather cramped. The typewriter faces the window.

Attics have been important to Le Guin. Much later, in 2006, in her poetry collection Incredible Good Fortune, she writes humorously about herself,

"I am the mad woman in the attic,
professionally frantic. Hear my laugh?"

Her setup was not her father's setup.

In this small, cozy, and cramped space, with a window but not a lot of elbow room, she has art, notes, envelopes, typewriter, cigarettes, and a five year old balanced on her lap, and that's how she wrote these early books. It wasn't this modernist empty thing w. huge windows.

If you look at the photo @vogelbeere posted, you will see that the same desk contained boxes of current mail, a shelf of books and folders, a case of pencils, what looks like a lamp, more art and photos, and probably more things that did not fit in the photo. Her setup was COZY.

Now I personally feel that it's easy to go "I will never own a million dollar house in Berkeley where she wrote all these amazing books," except that she wrote in a tiny space with STUFF around her and she also had three kiddos, and that paints a very different picture.