Life & Wisdom Quote by Sarah Zettel

LeGuin isn’t being cited here as a tasteful influence; she’s being named as an origin story. Sarah Zettel’s phrasing is tellingly casual, almost reluctant: “I suppose,” “if I was to have to pick a few.” That hedging reads less like indecision than self-protection against the cringe of canon-making. In genre circles, declaring a single “top” influence can feel like brand management, and Zettel signals she knows it. Then she does it anyway.

The pivot lands on experience rather than reputation: “It was while reading her work...” Not studying, not admiring from afar - reading, the intimate act that collapses distance between author and audience. The subtext is apprenticeship-by-osmosis: LeGuin isn’t just good; her books demonstrate a workable model of what writing can do. That’s the real compliment. Plenty of writers inspire awe; fewer make the craft feel achievable without making it feel small.

Context matters, too. Zettel came up in a literary ecosystem where science fiction and fantasy were often treated as commercial entertainments or “lesser” literature. LeGuin famously refused that hierarchy, writing speculative worlds with the moral seriousness and stylistic control of “important” fiction. When Zettel says LeGuin made her want to be an author, she’s also saying LeGuin made the ambition feel legitimate: you could write imagined worlds and still write about power, gender, ethics, and the cost of certainty.

“Topping the list” is a fan’s phrase. The deeper move is lineage: Zettel placing herself, deliberately, in LeGuin’s wake.