Rebecca Campbell has won the 2023 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction.

The $25,000 prize, now in its second year, is administered by the Ursula K. Le Guin Foundation, and is given to a writer for a single work of imaginative fiction. The prize aims to recognize writers “who can imagine real grounds for hope and see alternatives to how we live now.”

Campbell, a Windsor, Ontario-based author, was awarded the prize for Arboreality, a speculative novella-in-stories that explores climate change and its possible outcomes. (The book is published by Stelliform Press based in Hamilton, Ontario.) The winner was announced on October 25.

In their citation, the selection panel called the book “a eulogy for the world as we know it.”

“In her masterful and profoundly ethical stories, Campbell asks us what might be saved, what must be saved, and what it will take to do so,” the panel wrote.

Quill & Quire reviewer Brett Josef Grubisic wrote: “For Campbell … fire, flood, and death might be as inevitable as rising temperatures, yet she also envisions nature and humanity as up to the task of navigating an impending ‘Dark Age.’”

Arboreality was one of nine books shortlisted for this year’s prize, and the only one written by a Canadian. Selections were made by a panel comprised of authors William Alexander, Alexander Chee, Karen Joy Fowler, Tochi Onyebuchi, and Shruti Swamy.

The prize is awarded to a writer who work “reflects the concepts and ideas that were central to Ursula’s own work, including but not limited to: hope, equity, and freedom; non-violence and alternatives to conflict; and a holistic view of humanity’s place in the natural world.” Eligible works must be book-length, written by a single author, and available in the U.S. in English.

Kenyan writer Khadija Abdalla Bajaber won the inaugural prize in 2022 for her debut novel The House of Rust.