Octavia E. Butler
Octavia E. Butler
Octavia Estelle Butlerwas an American science fiction writer. A multiple recipient of both the Hugo and Nebula awards, Butler was one of the best-known women in the field. In 1995, she became the first science fiction writer to receive the MacArthur Fellowship, nicknamed the "Genius Grant."...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth22 June 1947
CountryUnited States of America
bought mother portable stories typewriter
I pecked my stories out two-fingered on the Remington portable typewriter my mother had bought me. I had begged for it when I was ten.
belonged house lived named nor people worked
When I was between 2 and 3 years old, I got to know my first non-human being. The non-human was a cocker spaniel named Baba. We weren't friends, Baba and I, nor enemies. He wasn't my dog. He belonged to the people my mother worked for, and he lived in the house with them and us.
anyone bring characters exist human life lives lovely order
The lovely thing about writing is, well, two things. One, writing fiction allows us to bring an order to our lives that doesn't exist in real life. And two, it allows us to create human characters that we know better than we will ever know anyone in real life.
awkward earliest hopeless rest school shy spite sports taller
At school I was always taller than the rest of my class, and because I was an only child, I was comfortable with adults but shy and awkward with other kids. I was quiet, bookish, and in spite of my size, hopeless at sports. In short, I was different. And even in the earliest grades, I got pounded for it.
black human inevitably prove spent struggling time work worse
As a black and as a woman, I didn't think that I would really want to live in any of the eras before this, because I would inevitably be worse off. I would have spent more time struggling just to prove I was human than doing my work.
people
Writing has been as difficult for me as for people who don't like to write and as little fun.
disaster except figure global
With a disaster like global warming, it's too late to worry about when it's looming except to figure out how to adapt to it.
Too many writers get into that gross-'em-out factor.
believed deal great people
My race and sex had a great deal more to do with what people believed I could do than with what I actually could do.
movies people
Movies are extremely imitative of one another. Whatever works, people will try to do it.
buying magazines market movies
I don't know how much of a market there is for space opera. Just because it's in the movies doesn't mean magazines are buying it.
heck life major minor tragedies
The major tragedies in life, there's just no compensation. But the minor ones you can always write about. It's my way of dealing, and it's a heck of a lot cheaper than psychiatrists. The story, you see, will get you through.
kids
I learned that five- and-six-year-old kids have already figured out how to be intolerant.
I had novels to write, so I wrote them.