Julie Phillips

@julie-phillips.com

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Author of The Baby on the Fire Escape; working on the biography of Ursula K. Le Guin. American in Amsterdam. "Opinion is the beginning of ignorance." —Lao Tzu

Portrait of a young Doris Lessing
People with a banner that reads "Hou de economie Trumpvrij"
Me unboxing the Japanese edition of James Tiptree Jr:, translated by Yoriko Kitagawa
A question from the NY Times's AI/not AI quiz that's been going around. One of the quotes sounds very familiar.
Pink book cover with circles centering on an eye, in whose pupil a bird takes wing
Book cover shows a woman floating in a black spacesuit against yellow sun and stars
Cover of Travel Light, illustrated with a winged horse and a dragon. In the top right corner, Le Guin says "Read it now."
A large gray Underwood typewriter with fancy tab settings, with a piece of paper rolled into it.
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
The envelope my voting pass came in
Sign in "HOPE" style, but with frog, captioned "HOP"
A frog, two excellent Star Wars cosplayers, and Elmo
Two protesters dressed as chickens
Architectural Association building, 36 Bedford Square, London, decorated with banners that say "The Word for World" and "Ursula K. Le Guin"
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."
"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.
Cover of "Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler," by Susana M. Morris, with a portrait of Butler
Man examining "The Baby on the Fire Escape"
Picture of Space Needle at Seattle World's Fair, National Eagle, May 1962
Gray boulder standing at the water's edge, looking like it might be regretting its choices
Speaker on Museumplein, Amsterdam
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."
sunflowers in a vase
Screenshot of virtual panel
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.
Tim Walz on stage, Muziekgebouw, Amsterdam
My bike, many bikes, and the number 21
For Charles, sine quo non
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.
Me wearing my Parable of the Sower hoodie
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.
Writing People: The Art of Profile & Biography. A Masters' Series course with Mayukh Sen. With guest authors Doreen St. Felix, Jiayang Fan, Julie Phillips & Julianna Escobedo Shepherd
Sticker on public bench reading "Liberté Egalité Fckafdé," meaning AFD, the German far-right party.
Postcard of the interior of the Forestry Building, with a glass roof held up by a double colonnade of logs
Large orange cat staking out the back of my couch while looking as innocently blissful as he can.
Mouse with cute beady eyes in plastic fridge container, about to be escorted from the premises
Orange cat hiding under the covers, except for the telltale tail.
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.
"Earthrise," by William Anders, the famous photo of Terra as a "blue marble" hanging over the surface of the moon.
THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS. Ursula K. LeGuin. Ace Books Original, $.95 The latest Ace Science Fiction Special is ideological and sociological; difficult reading with an over-abundance of invented language and unpronounceable names, and endless rosters of conspirators. An envoy from the supercivilized coalition of EkumenicaJ planets, on a mission to the retarded planet of Gethen, gets involved in civil strife and must make his escape from a prison farm and make a chilling trek through blizzards, over ice packs, around volcanoes and on to Ekumenical victory. The trek is exciting, but the rest of the book is confusing unless you are very up on intergalactic politics.
Unusual in its plot, abstruse in its meaning, this beautifully written book will have limited appeal.
Opening paragraphs of Le Guin's essay in the New York Times, Jan 22, 1989, published under the title "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle Writes the Book."
Photo showing covers of books about motherhood
Closed laptop on table that's been set up in front of bookshelf in attempt to look serious
At the Feast in the Great Hall, by Ursula K. Le Guin i A bird flew through the candlelight above the voices and the jangling harp, window to window, through and gone — So our life, the harper sang, a moment between dark and dark. ii My wings blundered in brightness, my eyes dazzled, then I was across and home in wide air and the night. Only for a moment was I lost.