Customer Reviews

Conversations with Octavia Butler (Literary Conversations Series)

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This is a great oppurtunity to get a first hand look at Ms. Butler. Her evolutionay growth, was very interesting. She is my all time favorite author. I was impressed with her world views and her reflection of her self. This is the kind of person I would have enjoyed spending a whole day with. I seriously felt pain in my soul when I heard this wonderfull human had passed on. Gone to soon.

ICU2
ONE

Although essays have been written about the legendary writer Octavia Butler (1947-2006), if you want to really get to know Octavia Butler you need this book. In Conversations with Octavia Butler, Conseula Francis, an associate professor of English and director of African American studies at the College of Charleston, has compiled a varied set of twenty-three interviews.

Some of the interviews were conducted for print publications, while others are transcripts of radio interviews (such as interviews that aired on NPR). While a few of the interviews are currently available online, it was quite exciting to read the first twelve interviews, which span the years from 1980 to 1998, because most of these are not freely available. Readers of her later books will also enjoy the eleven interviews from the year 2000 to 2006. The majority of the interviews are short, under ten pages, but a few are meatier at twenty pages or longer. The format of the interviews also varies, as most were written in the typical transcript style, but a handful were written as essays. Others are not one-on-one interviews at all; rather, they are write-ups of panel discussions. Regardless of the format, readers of Conversations, whether they are new to Octavia Butler's work and longtime fans, will find themselves captivated by the topics discussed in the interviews.

In all, I believe that this is a very important book, one that is particularly valuable to three audiences. First, fans like myself, who hunger to know more about the details of Octavia Butler's life and about her perspectives on her work, will be captivated. Second, scholars-from high school students who are reading one of her books for their English class to professors doing research for an article-will find much to explore. Finally, writers, both novice and professional, will appreciate the wealth of writing strategies and anecdotes on living the writerly life that Butler shares in the interviews. Her work revolutionized the science-fiction genre and inspired countless science-fiction fans, feminist writers, and writers of color. Conversations with Octavia Butler is a superb collection and a true exemplar of how her legacy can be shared.

For a longer review, see the online magazine Expanded Horizons, Volume 26.

I say intimate in quotation marks, because Ms. Butler was intensely private, but you can find small tidbits here. You can read a little about the fire that burned her grandmother's house down, her mother's off-hand remark that she could be a writer which stuck in her head, when her mother tore up her comic books...I am loving this book!