Earlier this year, the United States Postal Service announced that Ursula K. Le Guin would be memorialized with a postage stamp, featuring a scene from one of her best-known novels, The Left Hand of Darkness. The USPS recently revealed (via BookRiot) when that stamp would be available: July 27th!
The stamp will be available to purchase online or in post offices starting on that date, and can be used for postage that weighs 3 ounces or under. They will cost $.95 each or $19.00 for a sheet of twenty. The stamp will always hold its value, so if you happen to hang onto them, the the value of the stamp rises along with postal rates.
This is part of the USPS’s Literary Arts series, which has featured a number of notable authors like Nathanial Hawthorne, Herman Melville, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ralph Ellison, and most recently, Walt Whitman. It is also the latest genre-related stamp to hit your local friendly post office—earlier this year, the USPS released a set of Star Wars stamps featuring the various droids from the franchise, including IG-11, R2-D2, K-2S0, D-0, C-3P0, BB-8, L3-37, and others.
If you happen to live in or near Portland, Oregon, the USPS will be holding a special ceremony to dedicated the stamp on Tuesday, July 27th at the Evan H. Roberts Sculpture Mall at the Portland Art Museum. You can register in advance here, and if you can’t make it, the USPS will release a video of the pre-recorded introduction later that day.
