Ursula K. Le Guin
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Ursula K. Le Guin
@ursulakleguin.com
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Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018) was a celebrated author of novels, children’s books, poetry and essays. This account is managed by her estate.

https://www.ursulakleguin.com/
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This Saturday, 1/10, join lead curator Theo Downes-Le Guin for an exhibition walkthough of A Larger Reality: Ursula K. Le Guin at Oregon Contemporary. The walkthough will be followed by a Q&A and community reading featuring selections from Changing Planes.

www.oregoncontemporary.org/a-larger-rea...
A close up photograph of part of the Mother Oak, the tree at the center of Oregon Contemporary's exhibition A Larger Reality: Ursula K. Le Guin. The tree holds a selection of Ursula's work for visitors to peruse, and also has recordings of her reading.
January 8, 2026 at 7:44 PM
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Catwings then (Orchard Books, 1988) and now (Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2023).

(There may be a cat hair or two on the background surface; in this instance that seems appropriate.)
Two copies of Catwings by Ursula K. Le Guin with illustrations by S.D. Schindler; the original cover has a pale yellow border around the art, and Ursula's name appears before the book title. The second has "A Catwings Tale" across the top, above the title, and Ursula's name below. Both covers show four tabby cats with wings perched on a branch.
January 5, 2026 at 8:51 PM
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“To be free, after all, is not to be undisciplined.”

—“Why Are Americans Afraid of Dragons?”

This edition of The Language of the Night was published in 2024 by Scribner.
The Language of the Night: Essays on Writing, Science Fiction, and Fantasy, by Ursula K. Le Guin, with a new introduction by Ken Liu. This edition shows the author's name in yellow, the title in pink, and between them a stylized dragon (in blue) holding a simple rocket (in pink).
January 2, 2026 at 5:20 PM
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We see what you did there, Pluribus.
A screenshot of Rhea Seehorn as Carol Sturka in Pluribus. She's sitting on a poolside lounger and looks pensive as she looks up from reading The Left Hand of Darkness.
December 28, 2025 at 5:40 PM
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A seasonally relevant quote for today (posted during a break from the rain—which is not quite like warm soup, at least).
"It had always rained in western Oregon, but now it rained ceaselessly, steadily, tepidly. It was like living in a downpour of warm soup, forever." from The Lathe of Heaven, 1971
December 22, 2025 at 6:01 PM
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A very colorful Swedish edition of The Dispossessed, circa 1976. Cover art by Per Åhlin.
In this translation, The Dispossessed is called SHEVEK. The cover shows a man in a green long-sleeved top with a sort of sash printed with a landscape of trees and a river. He is holding up four fingers in front of a globe. In the foreground is a woman with dark hair and a black top, who looks off to the side.
December 17, 2025 at 11:54 PM
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It took a minute to find the right title for A Wizard of Earthsea.

(This text is from a letter Ursula wrote to Herman Schein and Ruth Robbins of Parnassus Press, the original publishers of A Wizard of Earthsea.)
This book is a fantasy of wizards, dragons, and shadows, played out in a world like and unlike this world, in an Archipelago of imagined islands. The geography of the dream is exact, as are the laws and limits of the magic used by the wizards in the isles. It is an adventure story, a Quest, a tale of a proud incautious boy who meddles too early with the Dark. It is a pure fantasy telling about real things: a boy coming into his power and his manhood, coming of age. Coming of Age in Earthsea, by Margaret Meade. -- I still find "A Wizard of the Isles" unsatisfactory as a title but more nearly satisfactory than any of the others. Except "I was a Teen-Age Wizard," which Krakie attributes to Herman. I do like that. Then we could have "Son of the Teen-Age Wizard--"
December 16, 2025 at 10:44 PM
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Ursula had some edits to this 1974 edition of The Left Hand of Darkness. Understandable corrections, really.
The title page of a 1974 Ace Books edition of The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin shows the title without the initial capital letter on "The" and Ursula's last name as one word. Handwritten notes read "why is "The" capped on cover and spine but not on title page? (should be capped)" and "Insert proper space in 'Le guin' throughout - cover, spine, front matter, backmatter, advertising, et cetera"
December 11, 2025 at 8:12 PM
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We're delighted to see Fred Fordham's adaptation of A Wizard of Earthsea on Kirkus’s list of the year's best teen and YA graphic literature! www.kirkusreviews.com/book-lists/b...
A screenshot of Kirkus's list of the Best Teen & YA Graphic Literature of 2025 showing the cover of Fred Fordham's adaptation of A Wizard of Earthsea, which is described as "A beloved cornerstone of the genre brought vividly to life through striking illustrations"
December 8, 2025 at 8:39 PM
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This memorable 2017 quote found its way to life in an event this fall that was part of The Word for World exhibition in London. As part of "Dream Maps: A birthday part for Ursula K. Le Guin," Rain Wu created an edible landscape inspired by Ursula's work.
TLS: If you could make a change to anything you’ve written over the years, what would it be? UKL: In The Dispossessed, I would mention the communal pickle barrels at street corners in the big towns, restocked by whoever in the community has made or kept more pickles than they need. I knew about the free pickles all along, but never could fit them into the book. Two jars, each containing an assortment of pickled vegetables, including carrots and peppers, stand proudly on a blue tablecloth. Green leaves holding round bites - unidentifiable from this angle - are scattered around them.
December 5, 2025 at 10:52 PM
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"A book won't move your eyes for you the way images on a screen do. It won't move your mind unless you give it your mind, or your heart unless you put your heart in it."

—from "Staying Awake" (which originally appeared in Harper's and also appears in The Wild Girls, from PM Press)
A hardcover copy of Words Are My Matter: Writings About Life and Books 2000—2016 by Ursula K. Le Guin, which has a text-only cover that shows the title and author's name along with the quote "Hard times are coming. ... We'll need writers who can remember freedom."
December 3, 2025 at 11:25 PM
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This very good rabbit (drawn by Ursula) is the first thing you see when you crack open A Larger Reality, the book created by Winter texts to accompany the exhibition of the same name.

(There are many very good Ursula drawings inside.)

www.wintertexts.com/catalog/p/a-...
The title page of Ursula K. Le Guin: A Larger Reality, which shows the book's title and a line drawing of a rabbit that gives a sense of scruffiness (perhaps it's the tail). The rabbit (which might be a hare; your humble social media manager has no details) has very big pointy ears and a very pointy nose.
November 25, 2025 at 10:32 PM
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Who is ...
An image of a Jeopardy answer reads, "This sci-fi and fantasy author was honored on a 2021 stamp along with an image based on her 'The Left Hand of Darkness' novel"
November 20, 2025 at 5:42 PM
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“The island of Gont, a single mountain that lifts its peak a mile above the storm-wracked Northeast Sea, is a land famous for wizards.”

This 2005 Science Fiction Book Club edition of the first three Earthsea novels has cover art by Leo & Diane Dillon.
This cover of the Earthsea Trilogy shows Tenar and Ged in a boat, with a golden dragon curling around the back of the image. Tenar, who is pale with dark hair, sits, holding closed a red cape with lavender trim. Ged, who holds a staff and wears an amulet around his neck, has somewhat darker skin and stands; light emanates from his staff. The boat has eyes painted on the prow.
November 17, 2025 at 7:33 PM
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A magazine asked Ursula to write about a book that changed her life. "A book? One book?" she wrote on her blog.

You can read the whole post here: www.ursulakleguin.com/blog/100-a-b...
"Nobody can guess how a person’s life or a people’s fate may be changed by one book, or one poem, or even a single sentence."
November 12, 2025 at 10:57 PM
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At 4 pm this Friday, November 7th, join Theo Downes-Le Guin and Oregon Contemporary director Blake Shell for an introduction to A Larger Reality: Ursula K. Le Guin—part of the Portland Book Festival’s Cover to Cover program!

Details: www.oregoncontemporary.org/a-larger-rea...
A photo of a detail from one case at the A Larger Reality exhibition: Ursula's tote bag, a brown bag that reads "I have abandoned my search for truth and am now looking for a good fantasy." It's covered in buttons. A label in the foreground reads "1965-2018: Protesting and activism. Le Guin advocated for social change throughout her life, protesting events ranging from the Vietnam war to the removal of a nearby chestnut tree." Theo Downes-Le Guin stands under the replica oak tree at the center of the A Larger Reality exhibition, introducing the exhibition on its opening night. The tree trunk has small bookshelves which hold copies of Ursula's books for visitors to read.
November 5, 2025 at 11:13 PM
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The finishing touches to A Larger Reality: Ursula K. Le Guin were made last night - and now the exhibition is open and on view at @oregonconsumer.bsky.social! We hope you’ll join us Saturday, November 1st, for the opening reception. Details: www.oregoncontemporary.org/a-larger-rea...
Looking up at a wooden tree, a replica of the Mother Oak, built with shelves that hold copies of Ursula's books. The base of the tree, lit in purple, with piles of books and a small device that will play a recording of Ursula reading "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" at the press of a button. Two people add details to the scales of the large dragon mural created by Ursula Barton. A man holds a level up to a test decal that is taped to the wall, making sure it's level.
October 31, 2025 at 9:15 PM
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Coming next month: The 50th anniversary edition of The Wind's Twelve Quarters!

This design nods back to the original hardcover jacket, which was by Patricia Voehl. The new cover is designed by Jamie Lynn Kerner.

Harper Perennial publishes this edition on November 18th.
The 50th anniversary edition of The Wind's Twelve Quarters by Ursula K. Le Guin has a cream-colored cover with a central circular design. The circle is divided into quarters; the upper left is three arcs in pink, a divided green, and black; upper right is a dragon; lower right is the moon surrounded by clouds; and lower left is a wizard among knotted ropes.
October 24, 2025 at 4:24 PM
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Congratulations to Vajra Chandrasekera (@vajra.me), recipient of the 2025 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction for Rakesfall!

Chandrasekera's book was chosen by authors Matt Bell, Indra Das, Kelly Link, Sequoia Nagamatsu, and Rebecca Roanhorse.
Rakesfall by Vajra Chandrasekera, with the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction sticker on the cover Vajra Chandrasekera, photo by Sanjeewa Weerasinghe. The author sits at a white table, arms resting in front of him, wearing a tan jacket and a white shirt.
October 21, 2025 at 4:18 PM
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On Tuesday, October 21st—Ursula's birthday—we'll announce the recipient of the 2025 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction! Join Theo Downes-Le Guin and guest host Ebon Moss-Bachrach on YouTube for a live announcement at 9 am PDT.

The announcement will happen here: www.youtube.com/@ursula.k.le...
The eight books shortlisted for the 2025 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction are in a stack, with a note on top that reads "Prize winner announcement 10.21.25 9 am PDT." The books are North Continent Ribbon by Ursula Whitcher; Remember You Will Die by Eden Robins; The City in Glass by Nghi Vo; The Sapling Cage by Margaret Killjoy; The West Passage by Jared Pechaček; Rakesfall by Vajra Chandrasekera; Archangels of Funk by Andrea Hairston; and Blackheart Man by Nalo Hopkinson.
October 17, 2025 at 7:18 PM
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Today, The Word for World: The Maps of Ursula K. Le Guin opens at AA Gallery in London! Curated by Sarah Shin and Harriet Jennings, the exhibition presents a selection of Ursula's maps, including some that have never been exhibited before.
A photo of the entrance to The Word for World exhibition, with two banners hanging vertically down outside the doorway to a brick building with white-paned windows. A row of bicycles are parked in front. The banners are purple and white and say the name of the exhibition and Ursula K. Le Guin's name. A cord-wrapped rock rests on a vivid blue background next to a map of and program for The Word for World exhibition. A stack of copies of The Word for World book, which shows the title in vivid blue against a black cloth cover.
October 10, 2025 at 6:21 PM
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🌟 Shortlisted for the 2025 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction 🌟 Remember You Will Die traces the lives of artists, activists, scientists, and more as they intersect with the existence of a yearning AI. Eden Robins weaves a polyphonic narrative that is intergenerational, art-filled, and subversive.
A photograph of Eden Robins' novel Remember You Will Die, which rests on a black metal shelf next to a small glass vase full of greenery: red berries, green and white flowers, and a shaggy sprig of foliage. “Profoundly mistrustful of her own legacy, Dante Pellegrino would have hated this belated obituary. But then again, such remembrances are not for the dead at all. They are for the living—the living now and the living to come. Remember us, we whisper into the ears of the future. Our mistakes have made you possible.” from Remember You Will Die by Eden Robins
October 9, 2025 at 6:53 PM
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🎉 Happy pub day to both Book of Cats and the newly reissued Searoad!

We will work on obtaining photo evidence of Pard with his latest bookish appearance, but in the meantime here are Bat (who matches the book) and Ziti (who is more curious about it).
A black cat curled up against a taupe sheet sniffs suspiciously at Ursula K. Le Guin's Book of Cats A long-haired gray cat, stretched along the back of a blanket-covered blue sofa, sniffs curiously at Ursula K. Le Guin's Book of Cats A copy of the new edition of Searoad, which has a cover detailed with stylized streaks of blue that turn into mountains and waves below the title, rests crookedly (oops) on a blue plush background.
October 7, 2025 at 8:14 PM
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Something new from this corner of the internet: a newsletter! It will be irregular, not too frequent, and full of Ursula-related news. The first one, which went out last week, contains a note from Theo Downes-Le Guin, explaining a bit of the why and the wherefore. Here's part of that note.
A Welcome from Theo Downes-Le Guin One of the great pleasures of my work as literary executor is the sense that we are creating a community around my mother’s writing and ideas. If I’m honest with myself, however, I know that this community already exists. Any time two people read the same book, and that book resonates with them, the potentiality for a community exists, and the chance that destiny will throw those two readers together increases exponentially. This is why text is a great tool for subversion, resistance, and revolution. So at best, I am slightly hastening this coming-together. Ursula’s dear friend, moral compass, and tech mentor Vonda McIntyre had the foresight to set up early accounts for Ursula on Twitter and Facebook, to discourage impostors. We didn’t do anything with the accounts until after 2018, because Ursula had no interest in the style of communication that socials demand. After she died, things changed. As part of my grieving, I wanted to talk and write more about her, to as many people as possible. (I also learned, over the time, that this is my job description as executor.) Instagram, because it is image-based, allowed me to share glimpses of her life without crossing the line of privacy and intimacy. Over the years, and with the deft guidance of my colleague Molly Templeton, we have created a tone (and a respectable following) on social media that my mother would have tolerated, if not embraced. I am certain that if she had ever jumped on Twitter (now, for us, Bluesky), she would have treated it as she treated her blog—a one-way channel that idiosyncratically alternated between intimate musings and fiery analysis of the political and ethical failings of society. I miss those tweets that never were. But it is not my job to try to simulate them—I’m not her, we have what she wrote, and we are fortunate for that. In any event, social media was never an Ursula thing. A newsletter, though—that’s an Ursula thing. I tell you this with authority, because among many grueling tasks immediately after she died, I was responsible for reviewing her inbox, to make sure no email went unanswered. In so doing, I found a window into the breadth and depth of her email reading—which included a lot of newsletters! She was no stranger to unsubscribe buttons, couldn’t abide a messy inbox, so I know what I found there was of value to her (and no, I can’t tell you; that does cross a line).
October 6, 2025 at 10:34 PM
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Hey, we know this one.
A photos of a question from Jeopardy reads "Ursula K. Le Guin's 'Lavinia' retells the story of this work by Virgil, but from the wife's point of view."
October 1, 2025 at 6:17 PM