Validation

During the critique of my story, one of the instructors says, "You know who your piece really reminds me of: Ursula K. Le Guin."

Now, there's no way for him to know this, but when I was a boy, I worshiped Le Guin; I read everything she wrote, and wrote Earthsea fan fiction when I should have been doing math homework.

I look away in embarrassment, afraid that he'll see my eyes welling up a little at a professional writer telling me I resemble, even a bit, one of my heroes.

"Oooh, looks like you really touched on something," one of my fellow writers says, laughing.