Le Guin festschrift now available!
As a gift for Ursula K. Le Guin's 80th birthday last year, Karen Joy Fowler and Debbie Notkin put together a handmade book of essays, fiction, and poetry celebrating Le Guin's life.
It was a one-of-a-kind object, but now Aqueduct Press is making a trade paperback version of it available to the general public. The book, titled 80! Memories & Reflections on Ursula K. Le Guin, will be officially released on October 21 (Le Guin's 81st birthday), but you can buy it now at a pre-release discount.
The thirty-plus contributors include Debbie Notkin, Eileen Gunn, Eleanor Arnason, Ellen Kushner, Jo Walton, John Kessel, Julie Phillips, Karen Joy Fowler, Kim Stanley Robinson, Nancy Kress, Nisi Shawl, Pat Murphy, Sheree Renee Thomas, Suzette Haden Elgin, and Vonda N. McIntyre. (Among a bunch of other people whose writing I like; for the full list, follow the above link.)
Oh, and me. My contribution is minor—I lightly reworked a 2004 blog entry on Le Guin's story “On the High Marsh”—but I am delighted to appear among such distinguished company.
(The toughest part of reworking that piece was avoiding adding a bunch of gushing about Le Guin's other work. When you know your favorite author is going to read a discussion you wrote about one of her stories, it's hard to resist adding lines like “Oh, and also she's amazingly awesome! Here's a list of my favorite books of hers.”)
Anyway, I'm very much looking forward to reading the rest of the book.