3rd December 6.30pm for 7pm Start
In this special event, Theo Downes-Le Guin, Ursula K Le Guin’s son, literary executor and head of the Ursula K. Le Guin Foundation, discusses his work with his mother’s legacies. In conversation with SF Said, award-winning author of Tyger, Downes-Le Guin reflects on her artistic practice and continuing her work supporting and inspiring writers and readers.
Le Guin's groundbreaking contributions to science fiction and fantasy frequently challenged conventions of genre, unfolding ethical and political themes in speculative worlds. Her explorations of feminism, anarchism and philosophies of space-time and ecologies also ranged widely beyond fiction, encompassing essays and speeches, collected in Space Crone, many books of poetry including the recently published So Far So Good, and cartographies of the imagination, gathered in The Word for World: The Maps of Ursula K Le Guin and on view at the Architectural Association until 6 December 2025.
Theo Downes-Le Guin is president of the Ursula K. Le Guin Foundation, which continues Le Guin’s legacy of supporting writers and readers of fiction and poetry through programs such as an annual book prize. Downes-Le Guin also consults on adaptations of his mother's work. From 2013 to 2020, Downes-Le Guin directed a contemporary art gallery, curating more than eighty exhibitions; he continues to curate independently. Previously he worked in public policy and technology market research. Downes-Le Guin holds degrees in art history and applied social research methods.
SF Said's first book, Varjak Paw, won the Nestlé Smarties Prize for Children's Literature, and was listed by BookTrust as one of the 100 best children's books of the past 100 years. The Outlaw Varjak Paw won the BBC Blue Peter Book Of The Year, while Phoenix represented the UK on the IBBY International Honour Book List. His most recent book Tyger won Children's Book Of The Year at the British Book Awards, Children's Book Of The Year at The Week Junior Book Awards, and was one of Burley Fisher's Books Of The Year.