Sequoia Nagamatsu

When you’re impromptu dining at the airport before a family reunion Airbnb check-in and you get an email that you earned out one of your foreign publisher advances. Okay, I guess this wine and lava cake is on Poland 😂

A copy of Rakesfall—the hot pink cover of which depicts a skull surrounded by flowers and vines—sits on a black surface against a white wall. A small pot next to it contains a vine-like plant, which is draped across the top of the book. The Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction Shortlist medal is in the upper right corner of the photo.

"We put on a play for ourselves, we ghosts, we people, we devils, with our superstitions like solidity, objects, time, or justice. We live in confusion, we swim in it. But the world is not a river to swim in; it is a glacial ocean, always whole, already complete." —Vajra Chandrasekera, Rakesfall

🌟Shortlisted for the 2025 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction🌟

Revolutionary-minded and dizzyingly intricate, Vajra Chandrasekera’s Rakesfall defies narrative expectations as it considers history, power, perspective, resistance, and the “dread scale” of myth and nightmare.

North Continent Ribbon book cover on the left; Dr. Ursula Whitcher author photo on the right.

Dr. Ursula Whitcher's "North Continent Ribbon" was nominated for the 2025 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction. We spoke to the Ann Arbor author and mathematician about her debut book of sci-fi tales.
pulp.aadl.org/node/644386

@yarntheory.bsky.social @neonhemlock.bsky.social @ursulakleguin.com

Margaret Killjoy (@margaret.bsky.social‬) introduces and reads from The Sapling Cage, her coming-of-age fantasy, which is shortlisted for the 2025 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction.

For more about this year's shortlist: www.ursulakleguin.com/prize25

I'm thrilled to officially announce that my debut novel, Once Upon A Burning World, is coming out from the excellent Meerkat Press in 2027! #fantasynovel #fiction #novels #fantasy #debutnovel

So wonderful to meet one of the creators of this constellation character map for How High We Go in the Dark! I've known about this for a while, but still absolutely bowled over by their incredibly close/nuanced reading and the creativity of this map. Bookographic and busybusyreading on Insta!

The white students who are struggling to make ends meet are not struggling because Black and immigrant students got into our university. They are struggling because of a shitty social safety net & high tuition because people like Andreesen don't pay sufficient taxes/the state doesn't pay its share.

Next week in Seattle at Elliot Bay Books! If you’re in the area you should drop by! Aram’s debut is a tender and complex exploration of the collision of grief, generational trauma, and cultural identity. I cried, I underlined so many damn lines.

just found out that if you write, you will have written. big if true

And if we're honest even the most conservative forms of sexuality and manifestations of intimacy become transgressive when so many genres are existing in a space where sex in fiction becomes some specific anthology/some project rather than a craft consideration you can choose to explore.

tbh I kind of think the increased use of language like "consume" and "content" about art and the experiencing of it is part of what led us to this shit timeline where everything seems disposable and people are happy to let a delusional robot do their writing for them

a man wearing a beanie is standing in front of a sign that says ' easter ' ALT: a man wearing a beanie is standing in front of a sign that says ' easter '

Took 30+ years, but I finally saw an image in one of those Magic Eye optical illusion photos.

A copy of Archangels of Funk by Andrea Hairston, photographed next to a small purple orchid, sitting on a dark flat surface against a white background.

“Nerves meant you cared, meant you’d have the energy to surprise yourself onstage. Who told her that, Miz Redwood? Cinnamon shook off jitters about evil shit going down beyond the Amphitheatre. Nothing to do for that right now. They’d worry about saving the world after the show.” —Archangels of Funk, by Andrea Hairston

🌟Shortlisted for the 2025 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction🌟

Warm, hopeful, funky, and wise, Andrea Hairston’s Archangels of Funk depicts an art- and community-filled vision of how we might live in a semi-apocalyptic future.

This bill starves school children to pay billionaires. Closes hospitals to pay billionaires. Kicks the elderly out of nursing homes to pay billionaires. Explodes energy prices to pay billionaires. Steals trillions of dollars from our future to pay billionaires.

A white mug with the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction logo holds a spray of lavender next to a stack of the eight books shortlisted for this year's prize: North Continent Ribbon by Ursula Whitcher Remember You Will Die by Eden Robins The City in Glass by Nghi Vo Archangels of Funk by Andrea Hairston The Sapling Cage by Margaret Killjoy Rakesfall by Vajra Chandrasekera The West Passage by Jared Pechaček Blackheart Man by Nalo Hopkinson

We're thrilled to present the shortlist for the 2025 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction:

She was no doubt a magazine journalist from New York and he was probably in Real Estate in Boston. One probably just got out of a bad relationship and the other is engaged with major reservations. They both went fishing as kids with their grandpas who also met their partners fishing.

Saw a young guy get his fishing line caught in the fishing line of a young woman and they were working to get untangled on a mostly desolate beach. While I can’t assume anything, I also felt like I was watching the opening of a Hallmark Movie perhaps called “Gone Fishing”🎣 💗

Opinion: College students, go ahead and major in what you love "The lesson here is simple: Major in what you love, not what you think will get you a job," David M. Perry writes.

"Learn to code" was always bad advice, unless you actually like to code. College students have the best chance of professional success if they major in topics that interest them. Today in @startribune.com. Please tell high school students and parents.

www.startribune.com/what-should-...

The correlation between "initial box office success" and "artistically successful" is not always high. This was less of a problem in the past when ancillary revenue streams (home video, cable) were at full strength. In this streaming era, there's less financial wiggle room.

I think I hate "emerging" because it suggests some kind of door or gate or a bunch of boxes to check and often AGE which then becomes a whole thing when you're older and are looking around and you have to ask yourself if this place is for you.

I was on a panel on the "writer life" and the notion of "emerging writer" came up, which . . . you know does any one really arrive? Sure, there are markers of certain "gets" and "wins" but the thing about writing is that every new project makes you feel like you're emerging. I do hate the term . . .

Not to mention the refugee and immigrant population on the island and the fact that it was historically a safe haven for black settlers. Give me a limited series about that as well.

I finished watching Sirens not long ago and the only POC in the show was the staff. And while there is a plethora of what I’ll call New Yorker Dinner Party fiction, I’m definitely interested in other BIPOC stories that are not just struggle or off the boat or white savior narratives.

Just got back from my third tour teaching for the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing, a lovely community created by author Alexander Weinstein. One thing I really wished television captured about this part of New England is the amount of affluent POC.

if you need a little break from all the bad news, I've got a new flash out today! it's part of a series inspired by the hypotheticals that parents often pose, i.e. "if you don't ace that test, you'll never get into college," but I spin them out into surreal scenarios. enjoy this moment of escape!

Dad's May 13,1972 commencement address to Ithaca College graduates:

The distinction between "peaceful" and "violent" protests don't matter. The police will always crackdown on any dissent in a fascist regime. It's time that Democratic leaders understood that. Trying to make distinctions is futile. They will crack down on peaceful dissent by electeds all the same.

AI about to tell them to stop saying "THE" Ohio State University 😂

Ohio State launches bold AI Fluency initiative to redefine learning and innovation With artificial intelligence poised to reshape the future of learning and work, The Ohio State University announced today an ambitious new initiative to ensure that every student will graduate with th...

I REALLY hate how academia has just rolled over on this front.

“Every industry, is going to be impacted in some way by AI,” said Ohio State President ----> Yeah, most jobs won't exist. Creativity and actual HUMAN innovation will be bludgeoned to death.

news.osu.edu/ohio-state-l...