(no subject)

Very happy 80th birthday wishes to Ursula K. Le Guin, whom I desperately want to be when I grow up. (Still not king.) Her books were a deeply formative influence (science fiction! AND feminism! AND non-white protagonists! AND philosophical rigor! AND lovely careful thinking about what it means to be a human being! AND breathtaking prose! AND!, in other words, instead of OR.), and her nonfiction essays were one of the first places where I saw that it was okay to be serious about science fiction. In other words, for someone whom I've "met" exactly once (I'm not sure book signings count as meetings, really), she means an awful lot to me. I feel the world is a richer, more thoughtful, and happier place with her in it, and I hope this eightieth birthday is a very happy one.