Juhea Kim is a writer, artist, and advocate based in Portland, Oregon. Born in San Francisco, Michelle has lived in Portland, Oregon for many years where she curates the fairytale reading series All Kinds of Fur and lives with her family in a cottage where the forest meets the city. Le Guin.” She is a 2021 Tin House Scholar and the recipient of residencies from Hedgebrook, The Sitka Center for Art and Ecology, and the Bloedel Reserve. She is the author of the critically acclaimed young adult novels “All of Us With Wings” and “Summer In The City of Roses.” Her writing for adults can be found most recently in Bitch, Cosmonauts Avenue, and the anthology “Dispatches From Anarres: Tales in Tribute to Ursula K. Michelle Ruiz Keil is an author, playwright, and tarot reader with an eye for the enchanted and way with animals.

In 2014 she was awarded the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, and in 2016 joined the short list of authors to be published in their lifetimes by the Library of America. The breadth and imagination of her work earned her six Nebula Awards, seven Hugo Awards, and SFWA’s Grand Master, along with the PEN/Malamud and many other awards. Le Guin (1929-2018) was a celebrated author whose body of work includes 23 novels, 12 volumes of short stories, 11 volumes of poetry, 13 children’s books, five essay collections, and four works of translation. This conversation was recorded in front of a live audience at Literary Arts on July 15, 2022. In this conversation, Juhea and Michelle discuss how they came-and returned-to Le Guin’s work, her influence on their writing, and how they are carrying her legacy forward, including the responsibility of the artist as a humanitarian. Juhea Kim and Michelle Ruiz Keil are two of those voices that we need now.

Michelle ruiz keil