Visiting Professor Alaya Dawn Johnson has been chosen for the shortlist for the 2024 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction!

The prestigious Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction is an annual $25,000 cash prize given to a writer for a single work of imaginative fiction. Just ten books were chosen by the Ursula K. Le Guin Foundation, with the final winner to be chosen by a selection panel of authors: Margaret Atwood, Omar El Akkad, Megan Giddings, Ken Liu, and Carmen Maria Machado.

Each year, we invite a new writer to teach with us every year so that students can dive further into different aspects and genres of writing and get a fresh perspective on their work. Alaya Dawn Johnson has definitely continued in our tradition of great Visiting Professors! Her nomination for the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize, as well as her recent win of the Best Fiction for Younger Readers Award by the British Science Fiction Association, shows the kind of expertise you can expect from our faculty!

Congratulations to Alaya for this incredible nomination! We’re hoping for more good news when the final winner will be announced on October 21st!