In recent weeks I’ve seen a discussion taking place around the names of literary awards, with many arguing that awards should not be named after people. One of those awards is the Tiptree. I haven’t wanted to say much about this, mainly because I’m in the middle of revisions for the book that ate my […]

Writer-director Maureen Huskey’s play based on the life and work of James Tiptree Jr. premieres in Los Angeles, October 27, 2018. “Dodging in and out of reality, the play investigates gender, longing and creativity as self-exploration through one of the science fiction world’s greatest literary tricksters.” This play has been in the works for some […]

On June 13 in Portland, OR, Literary Arts brought a terrific lineup of writers together to speak about Ursula Le Guin’s life and work. The evening included family photos, clips from Arwen Curry’s documentary Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin, and a dragon at the end. The speakers remembered Ursula the teacher, builder of bridges, […]

“How should we remember Ursula Kroeber Le Guin? Together,” Nisi Shawl writes. Like many others of Ursula’s friends and readers after her death, I wanted to honor her memory. I don’t think I’d ever worked and written as hard as I did that week, but I wanted to do something, and it seemed like the […]

The latest books in the Library of America’s Ursula K. Le Guin series are out now. “The Hainish Novels & Stories,” vols 1 and 2, collects much of Le Guin’s science fiction, including “The Left Hand of Darkness,” “The Dispossessed,” “The Telling,” and some of her best short stories in one handsome boxed set. The […]

Amsterdam’s wild-eyed feminist magazine Girls Like Us calls for a future that is “fair, fun, furry, fabulous, fierce, free and not fucked up.” I helped out…

I gave a talk on Doris Lessing’s early life and young motherhood at De Balie on May 29, as part of a special evening on Lessing in the series Grote Denkers. I also discussed Lessing and mothering with journalist and columnist Sarah Sluimer. More info and a video of the evening can be found at […]

Sam Maggs, author of WONDER WOMEN and THE FANGIRL’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY, will talk about women in geek culture, feminism, science, and more at Spui25, Amsterdam, on Monday, March 27. I’ll do the Q & A. You can…

This December 2-3 the University of Oregon will hold a symposium to honor the life and work of Ursula K. Le Guin. Tentative guest speakers are novelist Karen Joy Fowler, comic book writer Kelly Sue DeConnick, and Professor Brian Attebery, editor of the Library of America’s Le Guin series. I’ll be there to moderate a […]

Sometime between October 9 and 14, 1797, Coleridge wrote the poem “Kubla Khan” but was interrupted before he finished it by “a person on business from Porlock.” So instead of America’s Columbus Day, the second Monday in October should really be Porlock Day. I propose we spend this day celebrating, not adventure, conquest, and exploitation, but…