Seeing a photo of Ursula K. Le Guin holding a tribble at the Tiptree Symposium piqued my curiosity.
David Gerrold was at the event. I sent him an email asking if he gave it to her, or if he knew the rest of the story?
David replied:
I had tribbles there, but I didn’t give her one. I would have if I’d thought of it. I suspect Linda Long or one of the other organizers might have shared a tribble with her. If there’s more to it, I don’t know. We had brunch yesterday morning and nobody mentioned it.
I turned the question back to Jeffrey Smith, author of yesterday’s Tiptree Sympoisium report. He had the answer and an even better photo.
That tribble actually belonged to Carol Stabile from the [University of Oregon]. That’s her in the center of this picture, just across the aisle from Ursula. Carol had two tribbles, which I assume she bought from David. Carol and Ursula were trying to make them purr.
Another mystery solved, in the 770 zone…