Seventeen short stories reveal the author's sustained concern with human relationships and values in past and future worlds of fantasy, speculation, and unearthly provision.
The Dispossessed is the spellbinding story of anarchist Shevek, the “galactically famous scientist,” who single-handedly attempts to reunite two planets cut off from each other by centuries of distrust.
Anarres, Shevek’s homeland, is a bleak moon settled by an anarchic utopian civilization, where there is no government, and everyone, at least nominally, is a revolutionary. It has long been isolated from other worlds, including its mother planet, Urras—defined by warring nations, great poverty, and immense wealth. Now Shevek, a brilliant physicist, is determined to unify the two civilizations. In the face of great hostility, outright threats, and the pain of separation from his family, he makes an unprecedented trip to Urras. Greater than any concern for his own wellbeing is the belief that the walls of hatred, distrust, and philosophic division between his planet and the rest of the civilized universe must be torn down. He will seek answers, question the unquestionable, and explore differences in customs and cultures, determined to tear down the walls of hatred that have kept them apart.
To visit Urras—to learn, to teach, to share—will require great sacrifice and risks, which Shevek willingly accepts. Almost immediately upon his arrival, he finds not the egotistical philistines he expected, but an intelligent, complex people who warmly welcome him. But soon the ambitious scientist and his gift is seen as a threat, and in the profound conflict that ensues, he must reexamine his beliefs even as he ignites the fires of change.
'My aim for Mother Reader has been to bring together examples of the best writing on motherhood of the last sixty years, writing that tells firsthand of the mother's experience.
Many of the writings in Mother Reader comment on and interpolate one another, in citations, in footnotes, in direct homage. As I was assembling this collection one text would lead to one another, treasure-hunt fashion, the clue provided by an acknowledgement or bibliography. And just as often the writing circles back.
In Mother Reader chapters are excerpted from autobiographies, memoirs, and novels; entries are lifted from diaries; essays and stories are culled from collections, anthologies, and periodicals. My project has been to assemble a compendium or sampler of these ''kindred spirit'' works on motherhood, so that readers, and especially mothers with limited time on their hands, can access in one volume the best literature on the subject and know where turn to continue reading." [Moyra Davey in the introduction]
Writings by Margaret Atwood, Susan Bee, Rosellen Brown, Myrel Chernick, Lydia Davis, Buchi Emeta, Annie Ernaux, Mary Gaitskill, Susan Griffin, Nancy Hutson, Mary Kelly, Jane Lazarre, Ursula K. Le Guin, Doris Lessing, Ellen McMahon, Margaret Mead, Vivian Montgomery, Toni Morrison, Tillie Olsen, Alicia Ostrker, Grace Paley, Sylvia Plath, Adrienne Rich, Sara Ruddick, Lynda Schor, Mira Schor, Dena Schottenkirk, Mona Simpson, Elizabeth Smart, Joan Snyder, Elke Solomon, Susan Rubin Suleiman, Alice Walker, Joy Williams, Martha Wilson, Barbara Zucker.
Who decides what happens after sex? The last decade has seen many significant changes to the laws governing women’s reproductive rights around the world, from liberalisation in Ireland to new restrictions in the USA. After Sex offers personal and political perspectives from the mid-20th century to the present day, setting feminist classics alongside contemporary accounts. These essays, short stories and poems trace the debates and tell the stories; together, they ask us to consider what reproductive justice might look like, and how it could reshape sex.
The writers pay special attention to people — both fictional and real — who have sought control over their sexual lives, and the joy, comedy, difficulties and disappointments that entails. But above all, After Sex testifies to the power of great writing to show us why that freedom is worth pursuing — without shame and without apology.
With contributions from:
Lauren Berlant, Joanna Biggs, Edna Bonhomme, Gwendolyn Brooks, Beverley Bryan, Stella Dadzie and Suzanne Scafe, Storm Cecile, Lucille Clifton, Rachel Connolly, T.L. Cowan, ’Jane Does’, Maggie Doherty, Nell Dunn, Andrea Dworkin, Anne Enright, Deborah Friedell, Tracy Fuad, Kristen Ghodsee, Vivian Gornick, Donna Haraway, bell hooks, Barbara Johnson, Jayne Kavanagh, Lisa Hallgarten and Angela Poulter, Jamaica Kincaid, Patricia Knight, R.O. Kwon, Ursula K. Le Guin, Natasha Lennard, Sophie Lewis, Audre Lorde, Amelia Loulli, Erin Maglaque, Holly Pester, Adrienne Rich, Denise Riley, Sally Rooney, Loretta J. Ross, Madeleine Schwartz, SisterSong, Sophie Smith, Annabel Sowemimo, Amia Srinivasan, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Judith Jarvis Thomson, Alice Walker and Bernard Williams.
Ursula K. Le Guin witnessed and contributed to many of the twentieth century’s rebellions and upheavals, including women’s liberation, the Civil Rights movement and US anti-war and environmental activism.
Spanning fifty years of her life and work, Space Crone brings together Le Guin’s writings on feminism and gender for the first time, offering new insights into her imaginative, multispecies feminist consciousness: from its roots in deep ecology and philosophies of non-violence to her self-education about racism and her writing on motherhood and ageing.
When Ursula K. Le Guin started writing a new story, she would begin by drawing a map. The Word for World presents a selection of these images by the celebrated author, many of which have never been published before, to consider how her imaginary worlds enable us to re-envision our own.
Le Guin’s maps offer journeys of consciousness beyond conventional cartography, from the Rorschach-like archipelagos of Earthsea to the talismanic maps of Always Coming Home. Rather than remaining within known terrain, they open up paradigms of knowledge, exemplified by the map’s edges and how a map is read, made and re-made, together. The Word for World brings her maps together with poems, stories, interviews, recipes and essays by contributors from a variety of perspectives to enquire into the relationship between worlds and how they are represented and imagined.
Contributors: Federico Campagna, Theo Downes-Le Guin, Daniel Heath Justice, Bhanu Kapil, Canisia Lubrin, Una McCormack, David Naimon, Nisha Ramayya, Shoshone Collective, Standard Deviation, Marilyn Strathern.
Co-published by Spiral House and AA Publications to coincide with an exhibition of Ursula K. Le Guin’s maps at the Architectural Association, London, opening on 10 October 2025.
”One of the literary greats of the 20th century.” Margaret Atwood
In The Infinite Now, Taras Gembik crafts an intimate meditation on solitude, faith, and the search for meaning, ten years in the making. Moving between Ukraine and Poland, these twenty-five poems trace a decade-long journey of self-discovery.
Through stark winter evenings and quiet conversations, Gembik's verses explore ancient and universal questions of existence and identity: the nature of God, the comfort of walls and communion with others, the circular path of memory. The collection transforms everyday moments into profound reflections on love, displacement, how to build community, and the possibility of finding home in transience.
Taras Gembik (born Kamin-Kashyrskyi, 1996, lives in Warsaw, Poland) is a poet, curator, performer, and activist. He is the curator of the public programme at Zachęta National Gallery of Warsaw, where in 2024 he also curated, together with Joanna Kordjak, Siergiej Parajanov's retrospective. Since 2018, he has worked with the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw to provide a platform for refugees and those afflicted by the homelessness crisis. After Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, he co-created the Sunflower Solidarity Community Centre, praised in an extensive profile in Frieze Magazine, as part of a dossier on "Forms of Resistance".
In response to surges of violent British nationalism and political paranoia around borders, and to related social and ethical crises, JT Welsch and Ágnes Lehóczky have assembled an anthology to mark the vital contribution of non-UK-born writers to this country’s poetry culture. Wretched Strangers brings together innovative writing from around the globe, celebrating the irreducible diversity such work brings to ‘British’ poetry. While documenting the challenges faced by writers from elsewhere, these pieces offer hopeful re-conceptions of ‘shared foreignness’ as Lila Matsumoto describes it, and the ‘peculiar state of exiled human,’ in Fawzi Karim’s words.
The book is published by Boiler House Press to commemorate the anniversary of the June 2016 EU Referendum and in solidarity through struggles ongoing and to come. Proceeds will be donated to charities fighting for the rights of refugees.
Alireza Abiz • Astrid Alben • Tim Atkins • Andre Bagoo • Veronica Barnsley • Khairani Barokka • Leire Barrera-Medrano • Katherine E. Bash • Áine Belton • Caroline Bergvall • Sujata Bhatt • Rachel Blau DuPlessis • Fióna Bolger • Ben Borek • Andrea Brady • Serena Braida • Wilson Bueno • James Byrne • Kimberly Campanello • J.R. Carpenter • Mary Jean Chan • che • Matthew Cheeseman • Iris Colomb • Giovanna Coppola • Anne Laure Coxam • Sara Crangle • Emily Critchley • Ailbhe Darcy • Nia Davies • Tim Dooley • Benjamin Dorey • Angelina D’Roza • Katherine Ebury • Dan Eltringham • Ruth Fainlight • Kit Fan • León Felipe • Alicia Fernández • Veronica Fibisan • Steven J Fowler • Livia Franchini • Ulli Freer • Anastasia Freygang • Kit Fryatt • Monika Genova • Geoff Gilbert • Peter Gizzi • Chris Gutkind • Cory Hanafin • Edmund Hardy • David Herd • Jeff Hilson • Áilbhe Hines • Alex Houen • Anthony Howell • Nasser Hussain • Zainab Ismail • Maria Jastrzębska • Lisa Jeschke • Evan Jones • Loma Sylvana Jones • Maria Kardel • Fawzi Karim • Kapka Kassabova • Özgecan Kesici • Mimi Khalvati • Robert Kiely • Michael Kindellan • Igor Klikovac • Ágnes Lehóczky • Éireann Lorsung • Patrick Loughnane • John McAuliffe • Aodán McCardle • Niall McDevitt • Luke McMullan • Christodoulos Makris • Ethel Maqeda • Lila Matsumoto • Luna Montenegro • Stephen Mooney • Ghazal Mosadeq • Erín Moure • Vivek Narayanan • Cristina Navazo-Eguía Newton • Alice Notley • Terry O’Connor • Wanda O’Connor • Gizem Okulu • Claire Orchard • Daniele Pantano • Astra Papachristodoulou • Fani Papageorgiou • Richard Parker • Sandeep Parmar • Albert Pellicer • Pascale Petit • Adam Piette • Jèssica Pujol Duran • Alonso Quesada • Ariadne Radi Cor • Nat Raha • Nisha Ramayya • Peter Robinson • William Rowe • Lisa Samuels • Jaya Savige • Ana Seferovic • Sophie Seita • Seni Seneviratne • Timea Sipos • Zoë Skoulding • Irene Solà • Samuel Solomon • Agnieszka Studzinska • James Sutherland-Smith • George Szirtes • Rebecca Tamás • Harriet Tarlo • Shirin Teifouri • Virna Teixeira • David Toms • Sara Torres • Kinga Toth • Claire Trévien • David Troupes • Arto Vaun • Juha Virtanen • J. T. Welsch • David Wheatley • Elżbieta Wójcik-Leese • Jennifer Wong • Isaac Xubín • Jane Yeh
The Stone Door is a surrealist allegory intertwining myth, mysticism, and romance. Written by Leonora Carrington after World War II, the novel follows a woman's symbolic journey through esoteric teachings, ancient lands, and dreamlike visions in pursuit of spiritual awakening and the unification of male and female forces. Both a metaphysical adventure and a tribute to Carrington's personal love story, it offers a visionary exploration of transformation and liberation.