Steering the Craft: A Twenty-First-Century Guide to Sailing the Sea of Story

by Ursula K. Le Guin, Kelly Link (Introduction), Karen Joy Fowler (Introduction)

Revised and updated for the twenty-first century, Steering the Craft is Ursula K. Le Guin's carrier bag of the essentials of a writer's craft, a generous gift from one of the great thinkers about how – and why – to write.

This handbook is an accessible and profound guide to the craft of writing and editing. Le Guin lays out ten chapters that address the most fundamental components of narrative, from the sound of language to sentence construction to point of view. Drawing on the global canon, Le Guin offers her inimitably witty commentary and incisive dissection, developing into an exercise that the writer can do solo or in a group. No other writing guide offers such a comprehensive, experienced and kind approach to "steering the craft" as a writing crew.

Steering the Craft deserves a place on every writer's shelf.

Genres: Writing, Nonfiction

162 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 26, 2025

About the author

Ursula K. Le Guin published twenty-two novels, eleven volumes of short stories, four collections of essays, twelve books for children, six volumes of poetry and four of translation, and has received many awards: Hugo, Nebula, National Book Award, PEN-Malamud, etc. Her recent publications include the novel Lavinia, an essay collection, Cheek by Jowl, and The Wild Girls. She lived in Portland, Oregon.

She was known for her treatment of gender (The Left Hand of Darkness, The Matter of Seggri), political systems (The Telling, The Dispossessed) and difference/otherness in any other form. Her interest in non-Western philosophies was reflected in works such as "Solitude" and The Telling but even more interesting are her imagined societies, often mixing traits extracted from her profound knowledge of anthropology acquired from growing up with her father, the famous anthropologist, Alfred Kroeber. The Hainish Cycle reflects the anthropologist's experience of immersing themselves in new strange cultures since most of their main characters and narrators (Le Guin favoured the first-person narration) are envoys from a humanitarian organization, the Ekumen, sent to investigate or ally themselves with the people of a different world and learn their ways.

Reviews

[Ams]

Was very valuable to read technical things about writing from a senpai and their perspectives on it. I'm glad this book exists.

[Harper]

No rating - This is a series of writing exercises, which I have not done, but plan to do! I thought I’d read this over before starting to get a sense of the whole programme Le Guin lays out. As such, I can’t say I can critique much of what she says and advises without first putting it into practice.

As a cover-to-cover read though, her style and wit shines through in an encouraging, engaging, infectious manner. There’s plenty here for me to be getting along with and I’m really enthused to start trying, and even submit myself to the mortifying experience of writing workshopping.

Come back for part 2, where I give writing exercises a go for the first time in a decade.

[SullyIsReading · Rating 5 out of 5]

To put my review succinctly; Ursula Le Guin, in my opinion, is one of the finest writers of science fiction and fantasy. The fact she wrote a book to help the rest of us out is amazing, and the exercises are as good as her personal insights, which I thought were insightful and amusing.

I had been in almost a year long writing slog before this book. It reminded me the reasons why I'm a writer, and gave me something to write too. Would recommend this to anyone who needs a reason to pick up a pen or their keyboard.

[Zaur Shiriyev · Rating 5 out of 5]

More Than “How to Write Well”

One of the best books I’ve read. I wouldn’t categorize it simply as “how to write well” because it goes well beyond that. It helps you review your own manuscript and understand how to improve it. As a non-fiction writer, I initially thought that most of it wouldn’t apply to my political writing, but I was wrong. I learned a great deal from this book, and I would recommend it to any experienced writer.

[Eve Lumerto · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is such a great guide for polishing your writing and making it more intentional. I think this one is best for writers who have the basics of their craft down already, have maybe written a couple of novel manuscripts already, or a bunch of short stories if that's their thing. When you already have a good hands-on understanding of completing your project and what kind of elements it's composed of, this book can help you further into your journey.