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This week, we read a great article at Slate about Ursula K. Le Guin and the genre distinctions (or lack thereof) in her work. This article portends an even greater event, the publication of Le Guin’s new self-chosen best-of collection, The Unreal and the Real, later this month, so we’ve decided to take a look at Le Guin and other authors who have found themselves neatly boxed and categorized by the collective consciousness — but shouldn’t be. Click through to check out a few great authors we should all really stop pigeonholing, and if we’ve missed one, add to our list in the comments!

Ursula K. Le Guin

Le Guin is known (and well-revered) for her science fiction, but her more realistic mode is often unfairly ignored. In her new collection, The Unreal and the Real, she titles the first volume Where on Earth and the second Outer Space, Inner Lands — “I think the two titles are sufficiently descriptive and need no further explanation,” she writes in the introduction to the first volume. “Some people will identify the first volume as “mundane” and the second as “science fiction,” but they will be wrong.” Indeed — there’s nothing mundane about these stories. Here’s hoping the collection will open a few new eyes to another of Le Guin’s many talents.