Publisher compiles intellectual portrait of novelist

Published 1:30 am Saturday, April 4, 2026

PORT TOWNSEND — Port Townsend publisher Winter texts has published its seventh book devoted to the work of novelist Ursula K. Le Guin.

“A Larger Reality,” released last October, takes a different path from the previous works: “Hernes” (novella), “Into the Desert,” “Across the Ice” (short stories), “At Great and no Distance at All” (story suite), “Paradises Lost” (novella) and “Learning the Names” (selected poetry).

“Those were all limited editions that I had pitched to the literary trust run by Theo Downes-Le Guin,” said Conner Bouchard-Roberts, Winter texts’ owner, publisher and author. “This book was kind of the opposite direction, in a way, in that it was pitched to me, to create.”

Downes-Le Guin, Le Guin’s son, was putting on an exhibition about her life, thinking and artistry in Portland.

The exhibit opened last October and closed in February.

This book serves as an intellectual portrait to accompany that biographical exhibition. It is a limited edition.

The exhibition was a mix of art and biographical exhibition. Having a biographical portrait, Downes-Le Guin pitched that Bouchard-Roberts develop an intellectual portrait.

The book has been well-received and is selling in stores across the country, Bouchard-Roberts said, noting that the limited copies remaining are likely to sell out before summer.

The book can be purchased at https://www.wintertexts.com/catalog.

Bouchard-Roberts also shared that “Telling is Listening” will see a new edition published in early May.

The phrase “A Larger Reality” first showed up in a famous speech Le Guin gave at the National Book Awards, Bouchard-Roberts wrote in the book’s introduction. It became popular when she used it to describe being a “realist of a larger reality.”

As an editor, Bouchard-Roberts said he appreciated the phrase’s capacity to describe the wider range of Le Guin’s work and thinking.

The book, in addition to poetry, contains essays, transcribed speeches and short stories. Roughly half of the works are composed by other writers about Le Guin and her work.

The process of editing and pacing the book for completion alongside the opening of the exhibit was a nightmare that he loved, Bouchard-Roberts said. The first version of the book was more than 900 pages long.

Particularly challenging was licensing and commissioning the many essays from writers aside from Le Guin.

“Towards the end of the process, you’re like, ‘All right, so I got somebody talking about her poetry, I got somebody talking about her as a philosopher, I got somebody talking about this theme,’’’ Bouchard-Roberts said. “Then you’re counting the number of them. You’re trying to figure out where they go, and what they sit in relation to. Then the perfectionist side of my editorial streak is trying to find the perfect balance, so I maintain this work of art. And then there’s a deadline.”

The essays written by other authors contain a depth of reverence set aside for a saint.

Bouchard-Roberts, who never met Le Guin and knows her only as a literary figure, said that the process of publishing her work has brought him into contact with many who did know her. The consensus is that she was a truly compassionate and funny person, Bouchard-Roberts said.

Many of the 10 writers — who include adrienne marie brown, Harold Bloom, Lola Milholland, Isabelle Stenger, Nisi Shawl, David Naimon and Julie Phillips — speak lovingly of the force that Le Guin’s writing was, and how she expanded the imaginations of her readers, allowing them to see the world more wholly.

“She loved the idea, you’re conveying a series of alternatives, you’re exploring all these different ways of being, seriously, not as these trite examples or parodies or allegories, but genuinely thinking into the alternatives,” Bouchard-Roberts said.

The book is full of drawings, each of them a work from Le Guin herself. Most of them are charcoal drawings and portray wide landscapes, with minimal scenes, often built up with volume and shading.

The cover work is such a drawing, in the midst of an open swath of land, a single tree stands. The shading, possibly mountains or a mounting storm, are serene.

Other drawings are cute or have a cartoonish quality to them.

“We had to include some of her, just, like, ridiculous character,” Bouchard-Roberts said, noting that many of the drawings he had access to had never before been published. “She was a goofball. She’s a very serious writer. Very serious, very professional. But then also, yeah.”

The book is beautifully designed, a priority for Bouchard-Roberts, who said after ensuring a text holds value, the goal is to create an object that people feel drawn to, can carry around, enjoy flipping through, and that deepens over time.

Bouchard-Roberts wrapped up his two-year term as the city of Port Townsend’s first poet laureate at the end of last year. Keeping him busy currently is settling into his bookstore’s new location at 607A Tyler St. The building, constructed in 1868, was Port Townsend’s original schoolhouse. It allows for three times the shelf space from the previous location moments away, upstairs at Aldrich’s.

The shelves have gradually filled. The curation is following the influence of Le Guin’s concept of “A Larger Reality.”

“We love literature of all the genres, all the forms that are expanding people’s lived reality on a daily basis,” Bouchard-Roberts said.

The new store is a joint venture between Bouchard-Roberts and his life partner Camille Finefrock.

“We’re both doing the curation,” Bouchard-Roberts said. “She designed the place. Her career is as an interior designer, building planner, architect.”

The two travel widely, and whenever they settle into a new city, one of the first things they do is go to the local bookstore.

The new store, Winter texts Bookstore, will be world-class, Bouchard-Roberts said, right in uptown Port Townsend.

The store opened on March 11 and is open from 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Wednesday through Friday and from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Saturdays.

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Reporter Elijah Sussman can be reached by email at elijah.sussman@peninsuladailynews.com.