iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Julie Phillips @julie-phillips.com · 28/09/2026

I decided I needed an #ursulakleguin benefit T-shirt from @pmpress.bsky.social, because of the cats. Then I liked it so much I got another one by the same artist, @nobonzo.bsky.social. And now I'm feeling pleased with myself, so here are pictures.

A T-shirt showing a woman reading a book to an audience of cats. It reads, "There have been great societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories." --Ursula K. Le Guin

Me in a T-shirt showing an optimistic socialist backlit by a rising sun, along with a black cat who is sitting on books titled "Solidarity," "Mutual Aid," and "Liberty." A banner reads "Support the Minnesota Fifteen."

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Julie Phillips @julie-phillips.com · 09/09/2026

Angela Carter's Booker Prize, you mean, for Nights at the Circus. But we know how it happened, because the chair (posthumously) took the credit.

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Julie Phillips @julie-phillips.com · 15/06/2026

I also wrote about speculative fiction author Doris Lessing, who came to ICFA as guest of honor in 1989 and was the life of the party. www.fantastic-arts.org/2013/doris-l...

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Julie Phillips @julie-phillips.com · 01/05/2026

Here in Amsterdam we had a little Dutch-American Indivisible action, then the big Dutch May Day demo, full of young people demonstrating for labor & the climate & against budget cuts ("Austerity Sucks"). Good day to be outside reading banners and listening to a punk band. @indivisible.org

People with a banner that reads "Hou de economie Trumpvrij"

Demonstrators on the Museumplein, with the Van Gogh Museum on the left and the Rijksmuseum in the background

Three people from the European Public Services Union. Their T-shirts read "Austerity Sucks. Save Public Services"

Banner: "Steel geen centen / van studenten / voor bombardementen" (steal no cents / from students / for bombardments)

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Julie Phillips @julie-phillips.com · 27/04/2026

Thank you! I just got my own copies a few days ago.

Me unboxing the Japanese edition of James Tiptree Jr:, translated by Yoriko Kitagawa

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Julie Phillips @julie-phillips.com · 10/03/2026

This one doesn't seem too difficult.

A question from the NY Times's AI/not AI quiz that's been going around. One of the quotes sounds very familiar.

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Julie Phillips @julie-phillips.com · 09/03/2026

A friend in Rome spotted this striking cover for The Found and the Lost -- the book I often recommend when people ask where to start reading Le Guin @ursulakleguin.com

Pink book cover with circles centering on an eye, in whose pupil a bird takes wing

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Julie Phillips @julie-phillips.com · 25/02/2026

Not new, but I just came across it: the cover of a Turkish translation of Tiptree's "Houston, Houston, Do You Read?" Isn't it pretty?

Book cover shows a woman floating in a black spacesuit against yellow sun and stars

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Julie Phillips @julie-phillips.com · 11/01/2026

Look at this delightful cover for a delightful book, Naomi Mitchison's "Travel Light." It's getting a UK reissue from #Virago (and is published in the US by #SmallBeerPress).

Cover of Travel Light, illustrated with a winged horse and a dragon. In the top right corner, Le Guin says "Read it now."

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Julie Phillips @julie-phillips.com · 03/01/2026

At the current show on Le Guin's life and work in Portland, visitors can try out her old typewriter. She bought it used in 1966, after she sold her 2nd novel, Planet of Exile. She typed A Wizard of Earthsea on it, Left Hand of Darkness, Lathe of Heaven, The Dispossessed...

A large gray Underwood typewriter with fancy tab settings, with a piece of paper rolled into it.

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Julie Phillips @julie-phillips.com · 01/01/2026

Spotted in the wild, on a utility box in Seattle (artist unknown, from a photo by Dana Gluckstein). A good luck sign? I'm hoping to get the book done in '26.

Portrait of Ursula K. Le Guin, artist unknown, image from a 1989 photo by Dana Gluckstein, on a utility box on S. 15th Ave, Beacon Hill, Seattle

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Julie Phillips @julie-phillips.com · 29/10/2025

The Netherlands had elections today and they want people to vote, so I got to cast my ballot in a windmill.

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Julie Phillips @julie-phillips.com · 18/10/2025

Good energy at No Tyrants in Amsterdam. We had chickens and frogs (this one was passing out gummy frogs to the crowd). And we had WA governor Jay Inslee, who took a break from a climate conference to stand with us. Success today, wherever you are! #NoKings

My former governor makes a surprise appearance

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Julie Phillips @julie-phillips.com · 09/10/2025

Thank you to curator Sarah Shin & the designers of "Word for World: The Maps of @ursulakleguin.com" for letting me stop by while they were installing the show. The original maps weren't up yet but the fabric ones are beautiful. It opens Oct 10 in London.

Architectural Association building, 36 Bedford Square, London, decorated with banners that say "The Word for World" and "Ursula K. Le Guin"

Map of the Valley of the Na, from Always Coming Home, printed on blue fabric

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Julie Phillips @julie-phillips.com · 12/09/2025

Ooh, I wish I'd seen that. This is from a section in the book on how, starting in the 1910s and '20s, contraception enabled the careers of mother-writers and mother-artists.

Naomi Mitchison thought sex was “utterly important,
it is fuel for the imagination, it puts brilliance and vigor into one’s
vision.” From Mitchison's memoir "You May Well Ask."

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Julie Phillips @julie-phillips.com · 26/08/2025

"The function of art is to do more than tell it like it is—it's to imagine what is possible." --bell hooks, outside Theater Bellevue, Amsterdam

"The function of art is to do more than tell it like it is—it's to imagine what is possible" in red letters on a mirrored glass door. The quote is from bell hooks, “Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations,” 2012.

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Julie Phillips @julie-phillips.com · 22/08/2025

Here's me on Positive Obsession, Susana M. Morris's illuminating new bio of Octavia E. Butler. 4columns.org/columns-4/cr...

Cover of "Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler," by Susana M. Morris, with a portrait of Butler

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Julie Phillips @julie-phillips.com · 12/08/2025

I just discovered a very guy-ish comedy YouTube thing in which the guest offered the host a ten-book reading list. When he introduced mine, host guy made a face like something died in the fridge. Guest guy said, "Well, I liked it." You can't please everybody.

Man examining "The Baby on the Fire Escape"

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Julie Phillips @julie-phillips.com · 22/07/2025

Paging through Huss's National Eagle was a great education for me in what Ursula Le Guin was up against when she demonstrated for nuclear disarmament in 1962.

Picture of Space Needle at Seattle World's Fair, National Eagle, May 1962

Caption: This slender Space Needle...provides not only an excellent view of the fairgrounds but also of Seattle harbor facilities where American grain is loaded for shipment to communist enemy ports. Likewise, communist nations will have unlimited privilege to distribute their propaganda, and pro-communist movements, such as peace and disarmament, will be allowed to capitalize on the fair's huge drawing power.

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Julie Phillips @julie-phillips.com · 03/07/2025

While I was on Åland for @archipelacon.org I got to see this boulder in a Mariehamn city park. It was carried from here to the Netherlands by glaciers 200,000 years ago, then returned to its place of origin in 2020 by an artist who claimed he had talked to it and that it was missing its home.

Gray boulder standing at the water's edge, looking like it might be regretting its choices

Boulder standing between two trees at the water's edge,

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Julie Phillips @julie-phillips.com · 14/06/2025

Not #nokings in this constitutional monarchy, but definitely #notyrants today outside the US Consulate in Amsterdam. My friends at @cleanclothes.bsky.social came out in support of garment workers subject to ICE raids in L.A. @demsabroadnl.bsky.social @demsabroad.bsky.social

Pride flag and Clean Clothes Campaign banner in front of US Consulate, Amsterdam

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Julie Phillips @julie-phillips.com · 09/06/2025

From a friend in Portland, OR. Quote by @ursulakleguin.com; image design by Roger Peet @toosphexy.bsky.social

Poster for "No Kings Resource Fair" with frequently quoted line from "Freedom" by Ursula K. Le Guin: "We live in capitalism--its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings."

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Julie Phillips @julie-phillips.com · 11/05/2025

Happy mother's day! My daughter brought me these this morning and made us waffles. Consider donating to a bail fund today, so more mothers and children can be together. www.nationalbailout.org

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Julie Phillips @julie-phillips.com · 26/03/2025

If you're at #AWP you can find me on this virtual panel on writing & mothering, talking with the brilliant Angela Garbes (Essential Labor), Amanda Montei (Touched Out), Jazmina Barrera (Linea Nigra), and genius organizer Diana Xin. I learned so much. awpwriter.org/AWP/Magazine... (reg. required)

Poster for panel, with covers of four terrific books

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Julie Phillips @julie-phillips.com · 27/02/2025

My friend Ania just sent me this photo of "And Say That My Glory Is in My Friends," the collected letters of Stanislaw Lem and @ursulakleguin.com, sadly available only in Polish for now.

On book cover, Le Guin, holding a pipe and with a manuscript on her lap, looks at Lem, who is looking down as if reading a letter from her.

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Julie Phillips @julie-phillips.com · 18/02/2025

Tim Walz in Amsterdam tonight, talking about what governors can do right now @demsabroad.bsky.social

Tim Walz on stage, Muziekgebouw, Amsterdam

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Julie Phillips @julie-phillips.com · 23/01/2025

How not to lose your ten-speed in the giant bike garage under Amsterdam Central Station? Our family's strategy is to park in the lane number of your birthday. It was fun to do it the other day on my way to an actual birthday drink.

35 rows of bikes, with a total capacity of 7000. The garage on the north side of the station can hold another 4000.

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Julie Phillips @julie-phillips.com · 22/01/2025

Charles A. Le Guin 1927 – 2025 Ursula dedicated The Left Hand of Darkness to Charles, "without whom it would not exist," and I'm sure that's true. Her writing and her activism owed much to his wisdom, generosity, and political good sense. He was loving and beloved, and he will be missed.

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Julie Phillips @julie-phillips.com · 22/01/2025

Chapter 37 of the Tao Te Ching, by Lao Tzu, English version by @ursulakleguin.com She left us seven years ago today.

Chapter 37: Over all

The Way never does anything,
and everything gets done.
If those in power could hold to the Way,
the ten thousand things
would look after themselves.
If even so they tried to act,
I’d quiet them with the nameless,
the natural.

In the unnamed, in the unshapen,
is not wanting.
In not wanting is stillness.
In stillness all under heaven rests.

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Julie Phillips @julie-phillips.com · 20/01/2025

I was away when it came to Amsterdam! So I haven't seen it, but last year in New York I went to one of Toshi's amazing birthday shows and managed to get some merch.

Me wearing my Parable of the Sower hoodie

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Julie Phillips @julie-phillips.com · 20/01/2025

It was just the second anniversary of a death in my family. Today's my last day in my fifties. And 30 years ago today I started a new life in Amsterdam. I asked the Tarot about memory and drew the Empress, representing creative potential, delight & desire. She seems to be about looking forward...

The Empress from the Everyday Tarot, illustrated by Eleanor Grosch. A pregnant woman in a dress of flowers, with a pomegranate in her hand and a crown of stars in her hair.

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Julie Phillips @julie-phillips.com · 13/01/2025

I don't often teach, but here's a thing I'll be doing next month with my fellow biographer Mayukh Sen and the magazine OffAssignment.com

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Julie Phillips @julie-phillips.com · 12/01/2025

Sticker in Amsterdam, expressing feelings about the upcoming German elections

Sticker on public bench reading "Liberté Egalité Fckafdé," meaning AFD, the German far-right party.

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Julie Phillips @julie-phillips.com · 01/12/2024

TIL that the Forestry Building, billed as the world's largest log cabin, stood in the Le Guins' neighborhood in Portland until it caught fire and burned to the ground in 1964. #uselessresearch rarehistoricalphotos.com/world-larges...

Postcard of the interior of the Forestry Building, with a glass roof held up by a double colonnade of logs

Postcard with exterior view of the Forestry Building

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Julie Phillips @julie-phillips.com · 26/11/2024

Not Our Cat is claiming space through pleasure.

Large orange cat staking out the back of my couch while looking as innocently blissful as he can.

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Julie Phillips @julie-phillips.com · 18/11/2024

That would be the younger of our two cats, only she brings them in live for us to play with.

Mouse with cute beady eyes in plastic fridge container, about to be escorted from the premises

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Julie Phillips @julie-phillips.com · 17/11/2024

The further adventures of Not Our Cat.

Orange cat hiding under the covers, except for the telltale tail.

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Julie Phillips @julie-phillips.com · 13/11/2024

In today's news from Amsterdam, the neighbors' cat came into our house and tried to murder a piece of cilantro.

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Julie Phillips @julie-phillips.com · 07/11/2024

In Nov 2016 @ursulakleguin.bsky.social wrote about US politics from a Taoist point of view. I don't always agree with this blog essay--and who knows, she might have rethought it if she'd has more time. But I love what she wrote about the power of water. www.ursulakleguin.com/blog/119-the...

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Julie Phillips @julie-phillips.com · 22/10/2024

Today is @ursulakleguin.bsky.social's birthday. I'm rereading The Dispossessed, working for the election, and thinking of all the quiet political work that Ursula did throughout her life: demonstrating, stuffing envelopes for presidential campaigns, writing newsletters for McGovern in '72. 1/2

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Julie Phillips @julie-phillips.com · 13/09/2024

I was in Prague for a few days with my family, so we wandered into a bookstore, as one does, and came across these pretty Czech editions of "Catwings" and "The Telling." @ursulakleguin.bsky.social

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Julie Phillips @julie-phillips.com · 25/08/2024

From "A Good Girl's Guide to Murder": "I liked your reference to Le Guin's "Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction." Of course; who wouldn't? @ursulakleguin.bsky.social

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Julie Phillips @julie-phillips.com · 19/08/2024

“The misuse of language induces evil in the soul”--Socrates, quoted by @ursulakleguin.bsky.social, 2006. For a while that was her email signature line.

The Greek Socrates wrote: “The misuse of language induces evil in the soul.” Evil government relies on deliberate misuse of language. Because literary skill is the rigorous use of language in the pursuit of truth, the habit of literature, of serious reading, is the best defense against believing the half-truths of ideologues and the lies of demagogues.

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