stevenpiziks | An Interview With Octavia E. Butler

In 1997, I learned that my favorite author Octavia E. Butler was teaching at the Clarion workshop in Lansing, Michigan, only half an hour's drive from my house. I reached out to her and arranged an interview for Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine. It was one of the highlights of my career--I got to spend an hour talking to the best SF writer in the world and got paid for it! I was shocked and deeply saddened when I learned she'd passed away from a stroke in 2006, and I shouted with joy when I learned Amazon Prime had greenlighted a series based on her Patternmaster novels.

Last year, I learned that very few of Butler's speeches or interviews had actually been recorded. I still had the tapes I used for the interview--a fiercely-guarded souvenir. But I realized they weren't doing anyone any good sitting in my desk. I asked the museum if they would like to have the tapes, along with a copy of the original transcript. They readily agreed, and the interview is now enshrined with the rest of Butler's work and papers at the museum in Pasadena. Scholars lined up to request access to these papers before they were even cataloged, and the collection is now among the most-accessed in the museum.

I posted the transcript of the interview at Curious Fictions. Go see!

An Interview With Octavia E. Butler

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