Ursula K. Le Guin
LightNews LightNews
banner
ursulakleguin.com
Ursula K. Le Guin
@ursulakleguin.com
31K followers 75 following 420 posts
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/
Posts Replies Media Videos
Pinned
ursulakleguin.com
Ursula K. Le Guin @ursulakleguin.com · 7d
We're thrilled to announce the panel of authors who will select the recipient of the 2026 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction:

Nicola Griffith
Mat Johnson
Fonda Lee
Darcie Little Badger
Peter Rock

Anyone can nominate work for this $25,000 prize; nominations will be open March 1st through 31st.
A photo collage of authors Mat Johnson, Nicola Griffith, Fonda Lee, Darcie Little Badger, and Pete Rock. It reads "Announcing our 2026 selection panel!" at the top, and has the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction logo at the bottom right.
ursulakleguin.com
It's the final weekend of A Larger Reality: Ursula K. Le Guin at Oregon Contemporary! You can visit the exhibition Thursday through Sunday, noon to 5 pm, with expanded hours on the 7th for First Saturday.

More details: www.oregoncontemporary.org/a-larger-rea...

Photo: Mario Gallucci Studio
A Larger Reality: Ursula K. Le Guin FINAL WEEKEND Saturday, February 7th, 6 pm Kesh short film screening followed by Music & Poetry of the Kesh with Todd Barton Sunday, February 8th, 12 pm Fiction and Social Change: Walidah Imarisha, Anis Mojgani, and Jon Raymond in conversation Oregon Contemporary 8371 N. Interstate Ave, Portland, OR
February 4, 2026 at 7:33 PM
ursulakleguin.com
We're thrilled to announce the panel of authors who will select the recipient of the 2026 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction:

Nicola Griffith
Mat Johnson
Fonda Lee
Darcie Little Badger
Peter Rock

Anyone can nominate work for this $25,000 prize; nominations will be open March 1st through 31st.
A photo collage of authors Mat Johnson, Nicola Griffith, Fonda Lee, Darcie Little Badger, and Pete Rock. It reads "Announcing our 2026 selection panel!" at the top, and has the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction logo at the bottom right.
February 2, 2026 at 8:58 PM
ursulakleguin.com
Tomorrow, London's Science Fiction Book Club discusses The Word for World Is Forest:
The Word for World is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin
Mon, 2nd Feb 2026 @ 6:00 pm - 9:30 pm - A world of peaceful aliens conquered by bloodthirsty yumens, their existence is irrevocably altered. Forced into servitude, the Athsheans find themselves at the...
www.sciencefictionbookclub.org
February 1, 2026 at 8:38 PM
ursulakleguin.com
"There are great powers, outside the government and in it, trying to legislate the return of darkness. We are not great powers. But we are the light. Nobody can put us out. May all of you shine very bright and steady, today and always." From “The Princess,” 1982, by Ursula K. Le Guin
January 28, 2026 at 6:28 PM
ursulakleguin.com
We know which one we're voting for.
PBOT Snowplow Naming Contest: Winter 2025 - 2026
The Portland Bureau of Transportation and Portland City Elections are teaming up to bring back the second annual Snowplow Naming Contest.
www.portland.gov
January 23, 2026 at 4:55 PM
Reposted by Ursula K. Le Guin
julie-phillips.com
When I wrote this a year ago I had no idea how bad things would get. Today, eight years after she left us, I'm trying to follow Ursula's advice: write and worry. Write and act. Worry and keep writing.

lithub.com/the-way-of-w...
The Way of Water: On the Quiet Power of Ursula K. Le Guin’s Activism
In the past two months, I’ve found myself thinking back to an essay Ursula K. Le Guin posted on her blog in November 2016. It was one of her last long essays, and she wrote it at a time when she—li…
lithub.com
January 22, 2026 at 5:48 PM
ursulakleguin.com
A detail from Ursula K. Le Guin’s Book of Cats (Library of America, 2025).
The corner of p. 79 in Ursula K. Le Guin's Book of Cats shows Ursula's drawing of a scruffy little cat, all black with green eyes and a slightly grumpy expression, sitting upright with her tail curled in front of her.
January 22, 2026 at 1:12 AM
ursulakleguin.com
At Oregon Contemporary this Saturday, 1/17, gather under the oak tree as Ursula K. Le Guin’s daughters, daughter-in-law, and one of her granddaughters read a selection of her children’s books.

The event is free to attend and open to all! Storytime begins at noon.

Photo by Mario Gallucci Studio.
An oak tree shaped of panels of wood, with shelves in the trunk that hold Ursula K. Le Guin's works for visitors to read, is part of the exhibition Ursula K. Le Guin: A Larger Reality at Oregon Contemporary in Portland, Oregon. Photo by Mario Gallucci Studio.
January 15, 2026 at 7:22 PM
ursulakleguin.com
A screenshot from the website Meduza reads: Last year was arguably the worst one yet for Russia’s publishing industry. Bookstores were raided; independent publishing houses were shuttered; publishers pulled beloved novels from sale; and an increasing number of books came out in censored form. While the book business has long been one of the riskiest in the country, the degree of pressure on the industry was still striking — and it’s only growing more intense. At Meduza’s request, literary critic Alex Mesropov takes stock of how the Kremlin reshaped the Russian book industry in 2025: On December 18, Russian police raided bookstores in at least three cities. This time, the target was Ursula K. Le Guin’s novel The Left Hand of Darkness, published by the company Azbuka. Following the raids, the book was pulled from sale. First published in 1969, The Left Hand of Darkness was met with international acclaim and was even translated into Russian during the Soviet era. It explores themes of androgyny, interrogating gender and sexual stereotypes — which, by all appearances, is precisely what Russian security forces found objectionable. "When art shows only how and what, it is trivial entertainment, whether optimistic or despairing. When it asks why, it rises from mere emotional response to real statement, and to intelligent ethical choice. It becomes, not a passive reflection, but an act. And that is when all the censors, of the governments and of the marketplace, become afraid of it." From "The Stalin in the Soul" by Ursula K. Le Guin, first published in 1973
January 14, 2026 at 5:01 PM
ursulakleguin.com
Two recent Danish editions of Ursula's work, published by Forlaget Feberdrøm, with cover art by Marcus Melo.
Spørgmålet om Planeten Seggri by Ursula K. Le Guin, published by Feberdrøm, cover art by Marcus Melo. The cover is pale yellow, with Ursula's name in brighter yellow against an orange background down the left side. The primary image is in woodcut style, showing a stylized image of three women who seem to be huddled together in the background; a castle-like shape circles a sword in the middle. Rocannons Verden by Ursula K. Le Guin, published by Feberdrøm, cover art by Marcus Melo. The cover is a light green, with Ursula's name in orange against a black background down the left side. The primary image is in woodcut style, and shows a collage-like image that includes a man in a robe, a boat on a pond, a silo, a mushroom cloud, several mountains, several trees, and a hand holding a chain that loops around it all, with a pendant hanging from the lower right.
January 12, 2026 at 7:31 PM
ursulakleguin.com
"The team found that among these vaunted writers — including Morrison, Viet Thanh Nguyen, David Foster Wallace and Joan Didion — science fiction was particularly popular. Ursula K. Le Guin and Octavia E. Butler topped the list."
UW researchers analyzed which anthologized writers and books get checked out the most from Seattle Public Library
UW researchers analyzed the checkout data from the last 20 years of the 93 authors included in the post-1945 volume of “The Norton Anthology of American Literature,” which is assigned in U.S....
www.washington.edu
January 9, 2026 at 7:39 PM
Reposted by Ursula K. Le Guin
minotaurolibros.bsky.social
Nuestra colección #MinotauroBibliotecasDeAutor seguirá creciendo este mes con #ElLugarDelComienzo, una fábula emocional sobre la madurez, la identidad y el poder transformador de lo imaginario, escrita por la inigualable @ursulakleguin.com.

📕 https://f.mtr.cool/qhvfwebpai

#fantasía #cienciaficción
January 9, 2026 at 12:24 PM
ursulakleguin.com
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
ursulakleguin.com
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
ursulakleguin.com
“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
ursulakleguin.com
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
ursulakleguin.com
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
Reposted by Ursula K. Le Guin
libraryofamerica.bsky.social
Not just a novelist, @ursulakleguin.com was also a cartographer. Her fictional geographies were on display this fall at London’s Architectural Association Gallery, and a companion book on Silver Press sheds new light on her peerless world-building. Read our interview with editor/curator Sarah Shin.
Maps and Legends: The Spectacular Cartography of Ursula K. Le Guin - Library of America
Mapmaking lay at the heart of Ursula K. Le Guin’s worldbuilding. An able illustrator whose subjects ranged from realist watercolors to cartoon cats, the author of such SFF classics as The Left Hand of...
www.loa.org
December 11, 2025 at 3:27 PM
ursulakleguin.com
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
ursulakleguin.com
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
Reposted by Ursula K. Le Guin
reactorsff.bsky.social
Ursula Le Guin's short story "Solitude" presents a fascinating counterpoint to the concept of the Happily Ever After ending, imagining alternative ways of thinking about the world, relationships, and the self:
“Avoid Magic”: Le Guin’s Case for “Solitude” in the Era of Romantasy - Reactor
Weighed against the narrative perfection of a Happily Ever After, can there be pleasure in remaining alone?
reactormag.com
December 8, 2025 at 5:15 PM
ursulakleguin.com
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
ursulakleguin.com
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
ursulakleguin.com
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
ursulakleguin.com
"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