Meeting your writing heroes can be a fraught exercise. It’s easy to put people on a pedestal and meet your idea of the presence rather than the person.

Luckily, by the time I crossed paths with the late Ursula K. Le Guin in 2005, she was adroit at managing her public persona. I suspect she was very aware of what happened when she entered fan spaces and how to slip through those expectations.

She’s also the reason why I have a rare advanced bound manuscript of Brandon Sanderson’s Elantris.

How’d I meet her? Here’s the story. 

Las Vegas and fantasy legends

I’ve written before about my early career ambition be a science fiction and fantasy academic. I loved reading and academia, and SFF was my favourite genre. It was a place to get my bearings while I figured out what to do with my life.

While exploring this idea, I attended the Science Fiction Research Association and gave papers (circa 2003-05), including the original paper that became my TedxTalk on why we need new stories about female superheroes. That paper led to my work on The Xenthian Cycle when I realized I wanted to use my writing as a place to address the problems I’d identified.  

Las Vegas’ Tropicana Hotel hosted the 2005 meeting. Ursula LeGuin was the guest of honour and one of the big reasons I was determined to go. I brought copies of A Wizard of Earthsea and Rocannon’s World for her to sign.

Like a lot of Canada over the last few years, California was burning that spring and summer. It made for an apocalyptic atmosphere. Environmental concerns form a large through line in Le Guin’s work, so that also felt on point.

If you’ve never been, Las Vegas a weird place. Beyond the artificial glitz and gambling, the windowless rooms, strange chemical smell and strong scent of wildfire on the wind made for a strange conference.

What was Le Guin like?

Let me be clear: I didn’t know Le Guin as a person. I encountered only her public author persona. So take this all with a grain of salt.

My first impression was of her height. I’m quite tall. Le Guin, in her mid-seventies by this point, was maybe five feet.

But her presence unquestionably made her a giant.

She attended some of the academic talks and sat in the back. The panelists and the audience were definitely aware of her in the room.

At one panel, I remember she listened quietly until they made a point she clearly disagreed with. Le Guin put her hand up, gently deflated the hyperbole, and shifted the discussion to another tangent.

I remember thinking that she wasn’t interested in protecting her position as the most influential author and critic in the room. She struck me as someone accustomed to side-stepping her own reputation. There was a deftness to how she reacted whenever people deferred to her.

Later, when being announced at the dinner in her honour, she made a funny squealing noise and threw her hands in the air. It was playful, a little silly, and another way to demonstrate that she wasn’t there to take herself too seriously.

I spoke briefly with her during the signing session. She was definitely intimidating to my mid-twenties self, but also kind.

I expect you don’t have a career like hers and not know the effect you have on younger readers and writers. I remember her saying she hadn’t seen this edition of Rocannon’s World in a while:

There are so many questions I wish I had asked her now, but our time to speak was limited. And I was too chicken-shit to approach her outside of that opportunity.

2005 was a big year for writing heroes

In that same year, TOR also published Elantris by Brandon Sanderson. He’s a juggernaut now and a writing hero to many SF/F readers. At the time, no one knew who he was or what he would begin in The Cosmere of connected worlds with that first book.

Ahead of publication day, publishers and indies give away advance reader copies (known as ARCs). People from TOR Books (Sanderson’s publisher), were also at this conference. I vaguely remember finding a pile of ARCs in the middle of a table. Maybe at dinner? Maybe on another day?

In my memory, the ARC piles were distributed at the big dinner tables, but I might be wrong about that. Perhaps because it was bright yellow, I picked up Elantris (more pictures here).

I sometimes talk about this experience to people in their twenties when we’re discussing the importance of going to in-person events. Flying to the States is not cheap from Canada, but I’m glad I went (also online attendance options weren’t available back then).

If I hadn’t gone, I never would have met Le Guin, heard her speak, or returned with so many treasured memories.

A writing career for the ages

Le Guin remains a posthumous influence on SF/F and American letters.

She is credited with coining the word ansible, a literary device used by many SF authors to explain communication across the stars. Gender, sexuality, identity and cultural expectations are frequent themes in her work, and she wasn’t afraid to acknowledge her growth or the flaws in her past work.

I was sad when she died in 2018, and glad I contributed to Arwyn Curry’s documentary about her life and work, Worlds of Ursula Le Guin, which was raised nearly $250,000 USD through Kickstarter.

Ursula remains one of my writing heroes. If you’d like suggestions on where to start with her books, visit my Substack for a list.

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How did I end up with a rare ARC of Elantris, Brandon Sanderson’s first book in the Cosmere universe? 

Sanderson is a juggernaut in science fiction and fantasy. His work is so popular that when he announced four secret book projects in February 2022, he raised over $41 million from over 185,000 people.

I’ve done crowdfunding for work (never at that scale, jees) and that kind of audience response is no joke!

So why do I have this book? It’s a long story. 

How I got a rare ARC of Elantris in 2005 

If you know my background, you may know that at point I thought I’d be a science fiction and fantasy academic. I loved reading and academia, and SFF was my favourite genre.

Slam dunk, right? (Well, except for the part where I needed a job and money. But I digress.)

While pivoting into a career in marketing, I went to a few conferences with the Science Fiction Research Association and gave papers (circa 2003-05), including the original paper that became my TedxTalk on why we need new stories about female superheroes. That paper later led to my work on The Xenthian Cycle when I realized I wanted to address the problems I’d identified through my own writing.  

Las Vegas’ Tropicana Hotel hosted the 2005 meeting. The late and great Ursula LeGuin was the guest of honour (she’s the reason I went). 

It was also the year that Elantris, Brandon Sanderson’s first novel, was published.

Ahead of publication day, publishers and indie authors give away advance reader copies (known as ARCs) to hype the reading audience.

People from TOR Books, Sanderson’s publisher, were also at this conference. I vaguely remember finding a pile of ARCs in the middle of a table for the academics to pick up (and, presumably, read and write papers about). Perhaps because it was bright yellow, I randomly picked up this copy of Elantris.

On the inside, someone has written the number 13 in pencil, so there must be at least 12 of these books in existence (maybe more).

I did a little research via the Sanderson Collectors Guild, the discord server for Sanderson’s fans who collect his work. One of the moderators reached out and kindly shared that ARCS of this book run in the $1000+ range at auction.

What I have is technically an advanced bound manuscript (the yellow version). To the moderator’s knowledge, it’s never come up for auction. The only copy he knew of with certainty is on a shelf in Sanderson’s office, though I did see a Reddit post where someone talked about finding a copy at a yard sale.

There’s a weird little white mark on the cover, but otherwise my copy is in pristine condition.

And I’ve never read it. 

You never read your rare ARC of Elantris?!? 

Nope. It may seem hard to believe, but for a long time, I low-key forgot I had this copy of Elantris.

It moved from my room in my parents’ house to our first apartment to our first house and to our current home in Toronto. 

When I get an ARC I’m not looking for, it doesn’t hold the same priority as books I’ve actively requested. 

For example, that happened with Emily Tesh’s Some Desperate Glory. I got a copy at ComicCon 2022 when I bought a copy of Tochi Onyebuchi’s Riot Baby from the TOR Books table. The sales clerk was like, “oh, take one of these,” and handed Tesh’s book to me. It went on to win the Hugo, which is awesome

Have I read either of those books yet? No, I have not (I did eventually read Glory). This is a peril of being a book dragon.

I want to be clear that I have read other Brandon Sanderson books.

I’ve read and enjoyed the two Mistborn trilogies. The Stormlight Archive are on my TBR along with, like, 700+ other books (update: I read The Way of Kings in 2025 and really loved it). I prefer to read Sanderson’s work in audio format, largely because I adore Michael Kramer and Kate Reading as narrators. They did the original Wheel of Time audiobooks, which is how I fell in love with their voices. 

I intend to read Elantris one day. And when I do, I won’t be reading this ARC because doing so would ruin it (the type inside is very close to the margin). 

I’ll definitely go audiobook when the time comes.

Will Chaos Calling‘s ARC ever be that popular?

Ha!

The odds are extremely long and I have no illusions about that, but it’s fun to dream that someday that they could be. After all, dreaming is why writers do what we do.

I’m happy for all the fans and readers who are attending Dragonsteel Nexus this weekend. There’s something so joyful about being in person with people who love the things that you love. And my husband is among the readers looking forward to cracking Wind and Truth open this holiday season.

Some day, I’ll get around to reading it and the rest of The Stormlight Archive, too.

For now, I’ll keep working on getting Book II of The Xenthian Cycle out for next year. 

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Live long enough, and you may overturn your past self’s Internet bullshit.

I’m a case in point.

Me circa 2015: “Fifty Shades of Grey is the hottest thing in publishing and I have formed negative opinions about fan fiction.”
Universe (grinning): “Hold my beer?”

Unpacking bullshit can be a long process

I’ve spent a lot of my middle adulthood digging out of elitism as a life choice. I’m also old enough that parts of that journey are visible in my Internet long-tail.

I grew up excelling in academics, and liked both school and learning. I won scholarships, awards, and medals. My family valued my achievements.

As I approached the end of my undergraduate degree, I had no idea what would make a viable career. What I wanted to do was write books. I didn’t believe that career would pay for my life, and neither did my family. At a loss, I leaned into earning a PhD in Science Fiction & Fantasy.

That way, I’d meet the writers I admired and study the books that I loved. Win-win, right?

Diligently, I earned a Master’s degree in Literary Theory. At some point on that journey, I realized I was more interested in writing books of my own than in talking about other people’s work for a living.

I started working, first in communications and then in marketing, and writing on the side.

Like many creatives, my ambitions and opinions about what makes a great book exceeded my ability to execute for a long, long time. It was frustrating. I despaired and felt envy for people I perceived as having what I wanted.

During this time, I wrote some unfortunate, judgemental things about fan fiction. The original essay isn’t worth your time.

My karmic turn in the river

In 2016, I read Liz Gilbert’s Big Magic. In it, she brings a non-elitist approach to creativity’s importance in our lives, while pointing out the elitism that exists in how we’re taught to think about how art and how it gets made.

During this period, I was also active on Twitter, which expanded my creative horizons. I listened to a lot of conversations about how widely people read, what participating in a fandom can mean, and why folks like what they like.

Reflecting on both experiences and my first essay after finishing Gilbert’s book, I realized I was doing nothing more profound than letting my fears about my writing prospects grab the mic while crapping on other people.

So I wrote “Death of a Fan Fiction Snob” to take myself to task.

For years, I thought that was it—lesson learned.

The muse had other plans.

The Switch game that changed everything

In 2019 and 2021, I played Fire Emblem: Three Houses (FE3H) for the Nintendo Switch.

It’s a strategy game set in a fantasy world with great characters, some heartbreaking choices, and a high degree of re-playability. I was quickly hooked. As I played the first of four possible routes, my passion for the game prompted me to read fan fiction for the first time.

Last February, I started rewriting the game as a romantasy action story on an Archive of Our Own, one of the biggest non-profit sites for fan fiction.

It’s called Into the Fishpond: A Three Houses Alliance. And it’s finished.

While Fishpond has a small yet kind following (~7,000+ hits), I’ve had some wonderful interactions with its readers (~170+ comments). Since it’s over 215,000 words, Fishpond is the longest story I’ve ever written. It taught me lots about writing faster, structuring scenes, and building sexual tension.

Like Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, which loosely inspired the title, Fishpond is a portal story about someone from our world who ends up in the portal world.

It’s also got:

• A romance between two people dealing with grief (if you know FE3H well, Fishpond is loosely a Setleth ship)
• Found family
• Dragons
• Intense battle scenes (surprise!!)
• Magical twins (again!?) whose sibling bond low-key powers the whole thing (picturing your shocked face)
• My first non-binary character
• A lot of non-canon lore that I made up as I went along

Want to know more? Here’s the plot teaser from Fishpond’s intro on AO3:

Zara has just finished playing Fire Emblem: Three Houses for the fourth time when she’s struck by the injustice of watching her favourite characters die time and again. Why can’t she save all of them?

Fortunately, the Goddess Sothis agrees that this is a problem worth solving.

Into the Fishpond by E. M. Williams

Getting over your Internet Bullshit

My Internet bullshit almost stopped me from writing Fishpond. I was embarrassed to have once held negative opinions about an activity to which I was now devoting so much time. At first, I spent a lot of time minimizing this new novel and what it meant to me.

Some kind friends pointed out how deeply sad I got writing Chaos Armor, and how much joy came into my face when I talked about Fishpond. I’m glad I listened to them.

Besides great joy, this creative side quest proved I can build an audience entirely separate from my social circles and professional network.

I don’t expect the crossover audience for Fishpond to be high. Without game context, I’m not sure how much sense the story makes to Xenthian Cycle readers, although I did get comments from some people who’ve never played the game and enjoyed it.

Either way, I’m proud of the work and wanted to share that it exists.

Here’s to living long enough to set your Internet bullshit on fire.

Other posts in this series:

• What Writing on AO3 Taught Me: Golden Route = Powerful Premise
• My AO3 stats model

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