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Octavia E. Butler: The Last Interview: and Other Conversations
“I write about people who do extraordinary things. It just turned out that it was called science fiction.” - Octavia E. Butler
Octavia E. Butler's work broke innumerable barriers and helped open the field of science fiction to writers and readers it had never had before. As the first Black writer to win the coveted Nebula and Hugo Awards, her courage and vision left a peerless legacy for fans not just of science fiction, but of American literature. In this collection of 6 interviews, 3 of them never published, Butler speaks with candor and openness about her work, her imaginative mission, and the barriers she faced as a Black woman working in a genre dominated by white men.
Octavia E. Butler's work broke innumerable barriers and helped open the field of science fiction to writers and readers it had never had before. As the first Black writer to win the coveted Nebula and Hugo Awards, her courage and vision left a peerless legacy for fans not just of science fiction, but of American literature. In this collection of 6 interviews, 3 of them never published, Butler speaks with candor and openness about her work, her imaginative mission, and the barriers she faced as a Black woman working in a genre dominated by white men.
189 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 19, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 51 reviews
October 1, 2024
I loved getting to know Butler more but some of these interviews were... rough.
September 5, 2023
This was really interesting- a collection of interviews with Octavia Butler from early in her career to just before her death. She's smart, funny, and down-to-earth. And hearing her perspective on genre fiction, on being one of the only Black authors (let alone Black women) in SFF, and on the intent of her own work gives an added layer of insight. I love Butlers work and recommend this to anyone is also a fan. It is tragic hearing her talk about her long term plans when we lost her too early. I received a copy of this book for review via NetGalley, all opinions are my own.
January 5, 2024
This is such an enlightening and inspiring compilation of interviews done by one of the most interesting and pioneering individuals to have ever written. I will always be enthralled by the way Octavia Butler spoke and wrote, and it's beyond devastating that she was taken too soon.
October 14, 2023
A great selection of interviews. So upsetting that we lost Butler so soon. I felt a twinge every time she said she expected to be 80 and still writing.
March 17, 2024
If you are a super fan of Butler (like me!) and have read all of her books, this is a MUST HAVE!
Complete interviews that go into depth on the process of creating her novels, characters, and worlds. I loved reading about how personal each story was to her. She died so young and I never got to meet her, but I feel like I got to know her a little bit through these interviews.
Complete interviews that go into depth on the process of creating her novels, characters, and worlds. I loved reading about how personal each story was to her. She died so young and I never got to meet her, but I feel like I got to know her a little bit through these interviews.
June 22, 2025
C'è più sostanza nelle risposte di Octavia Butler alle interviste che in tutto il mio cervello. Vorrei avere un quarto della lucidità che aveva lei. È un vero peccato che in Italia non si sia ancora iniziato a lavorare in modo serio e continuativo sulle opere e il pensiero di questa autrice e la traduzione di questo volume potrebbe essere un buon punto di partenza.
October 30, 2023
Warning.
Do not read anyone alongside of Toni Morrison.
The other person will pale in comparison.
Do not read anyone alongside of Toni Morrison.
The other person will pale in comparison.
August 18, 2023
This volume is a great collection of interviews with Butler, looking at her life, her upbringing, specific books, and her career overall. Fans of her work will find the interviews here insightful and useful, and scholars of Butler's work will find this invaluable.
June 15, 2025
i love octavia butler
April 13, 2025
This collection of interviews gave me great insight into Butler as an author. I have not read any of her works before this and will certainly start now.
Fair warning - some of the interviews included seem amateurish but Butler's responses make up for it.
Fair warning - some of the interviews included seem amateurish but Butler's responses make up for it.
August 2, 2025
A lovely collection of interviews (part of a whole Last Interview Series by Melville House Publishing). Butler comes across as intelligent, deliberate, and fascinating.
Fans, writers, and those new to the author should all find something to enjoy here.
"I don’t think people are paying enough attention to the long-term aspects of what we are doing to the earth. We are shortsighted. Especially in this country. I’m afraid that we are so used to having it good that we want to do is find another way to have it just as good as we have always had it."
Fans, writers, and those new to the author should all find something to enjoy here.
August 22, 2024
Octavia Butler was a survivor, a dreamer and a loner. She was painfully shy as an adolescent, dyslexic, and ‘probably’ gay was her literal answer to a direct question. Bloodchild was about male pregnancy. She enjoys working in SF for the freedom it offers, the ability to go into any technological or sociological problem and extrapolate from there. Her work is underpinned by concepts of power, told in worlds of different races, sexes and cultures, with interest in powerless people gaining power. A theme I very much identify with as a context for my own work.
I first read Octavia Butler when I was a young teen, starting with Kindred. Dana Frankin, a Black woman from an interracial marriage in LA in 1976, is mysteriously and repeatedly plucked back in time to 1824 Maryland and to a moral dilemma involving her white ancestor. The author describes how it was purposeful to give Dana a white husband, to complicate her life, and it was purposeful to make her lose her arm, to demonstrate that she could not come back whole from those experiences. The perspective is told from the viewpoint of not what it might have been like for her ancestors, but rather what it might be like for her, how slavery might reshape her emotionally, whether the compromises and capitulations she would have to make might destroy her, and if not, why not?
Octavia Butler speaks of striving to tell a good story, to take the reader to a world they haven’t seen before, one she has enjoyed creating. She subverts expectations about race, gender, and power, incorporating strong women, multiracial societies and aliens who challenge humanity’s penchant for destruction. In Bloodchild, she wanted to subvert expectation of the invasion story, often represented as humans colonising other planets and either facing aliens who resist, or who submit and become good servants. The author created another possibility in the Oankali, a centipede-like creature that you’re not supposed to regard as evil. It is a species that do not force or rush humans into mating but rather try to bring them in gradually. And in Adulthood Rites, the Oankali become convinced that they cannot destroy the humans who participate, and that humans deserve an untouched world of their own, even if it is Mars.
Octavia Butler advocated for write what you care about, rather than write what you know, (or what you think you know, which is often just regurgitating ideas you have been told, ideas you might tell yourself you believe, when in fact you don’t). Writing can push back against human laziness that is prone to stereotyping as a form of shorthand, that might be a way to deal more with the things we care about and less with the other, but it is reductive and can prevent us from discovering things we could want to know.
Last word:
“Feminism is freedom. It’s the freedom to be who you are and not who someone else wants you to be. And science fiction? Science fiction is wide open. You can go anywhere your imagination can go.”
I first read Octavia Butler when I was a young teen, starting with Kindred. Dana Frankin, a Black woman from an interracial marriage in LA in 1976, is mysteriously and repeatedly plucked back in time to 1824 Maryland and to a moral dilemma involving her white ancestor. The author describes how it was purposeful to give Dana a white husband, to complicate her life, and it was purposeful to make her lose her arm, to demonstrate that she could not come back whole from those experiences. The perspective is told from the viewpoint of not what it might have been like for her ancestors, but rather what it might be like for her, how slavery might reshape her emotionally, whether the compromises and capitulations she would have to make might destroy her, and if not, why not?
Octavia Butler speaks of striving to tell a good story, to take the reader to a world they haven’t seen before, one she has enjoyed creating. She subverts expectations about race, gender, and power, incorporating strong women, multiracial societies and aliens who challenge humanity’s penchant for destruction. In Bloodchild, she wanted to subvert expectation of the invasion story, often represented as humans colonising other planets and either facing aliens who resist, or who submit and become good servants. The author created another possibility in the Oankali, a centipede-like creature that you’re not supposed to regard as evil. It is a species that do not force or rush humans into mating but rather try to bring them in gradually. And in Adulthood Rites, the Oankali become convinced that they cannot destroy the humans who participate, and that humans deserve an untouched world of their own, even if it is Mars.
Octavia Butler advocated for write what you care about, rather than write what you know, (or what you think you know, which is often just regurgitating ideas you have been told, ideas you might tell yourself you believe, when in fact you don’t). Writing can push back against human laziness that is prone to stereotyping as a form of shorthand, that might be a way to deal more with the things we care about and less with the other, but it is reductive and can prevent us from discovering things we could want to know.
Last word:
“Feminism is freedom. It’s the freedom to be who you are and not who someone else wants you to be. And science fiction? Science fiction is wide open. You can go anywhere your imagination can go.”
October 7, 2023
Originally posted on my blog Nonstop Reader.
Octavia E. Butler: The Last Interview: and Other Conversations is a very well curated collection of recollections, interviews, and vignettes by/about/and featuring Octavia Butler. Released 19th Sept 2023 by Melville House, it's 192 pages and is available in paperback and ebook formats.
Octavia Butler was a powerhouse author and a brilliant human being. Her practicality and intelligence shine in these articles and interviews which span decades from her early career (1979 Thrust interview with Jeffrey Elliott) through a 2006 podcast shortly before her death. She is always articulate and well spoken and offers astute insights into human nature, speculative fiction, authors and the craft of creative writing, being a minority voice in an overwhelmingly white (at the time) field, and her lived experiences.
This book is part of a series of Last Interviews with authors, cultural icons, writers, and musicians. The interviews included in this volume are arranged in roughly chronological order and give an interesting overview and some insights into ways her interactions changed over her career, or at least her interactions with interviewers. The introduction by Samuel R. Delany is warmly and respectfully written and adds a lot to the overall book.
This is a short but vitally interesting collection for fans of the author, and would be a good choice for public or school library acquisition (along with the rest of the series), as well as for fans of the author's work and potentially for more formal classroom instruction.
Five stars.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
Octavia E. Butler: The Last Interview: and Other Conversations is a very well curated collection of recollections, interviews, and vignettes by/about/and featuring Octavia Butler. Released 19th Sept 2023 by Melville House, it's 192 pages and is available in paperback and ebook formats.
Octavia Butler was a powerhouse author and a brilliant human being. Her practicality and intelligence shine in these articles and interviews which span decades from her early career (1979 Thrust interview with Jeffrey Elliott) through a 2006 podcast shortly before her death. She is always articulate and well spoken and offers astute insights into human nature, speculative fiction, authors and the craft of creative writing, being a minority voice in an overwhelmingly white (at the time) field, and her lived experiences.
This book is part of a series of Last Interviews with authors, cultural icons, writers, and musicians. The interviews included in this volume are arranged in roughly chronological order and give an interesting overview and some insights into ways her interactions changed over her career, or at least her interactions with interviewers. The introduction by Samuel R. Delany is warmly and respectfully written and adds a lot to the overall book.
This is a short but vitally interesting collection for fans of the author, and would be a good choice for public or school library acquisition (along with the rest of the series), as well as for fans of the author's work and potentially for more formal classroom instruction.
Five stars.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
October 10, 2023
OCTAVIA E. BUTLER: THE LAST INTERVIEW AND OTHER CONVERSATIONS is a collection of 10 interviews with Octavia Butler, 3 of which haven’t been published before. I was concerned that this book might be too similar to CONVERSATIONS WITH OCTAVIA BUTLER, but that wasn’t the case! Only a few interviews are shared between the books. This book offers more insight into her personal life, early career, and personality. There are also in-depth conversations about the inspiration for her stories and nuanced discussions of politics and race.
My favourite moment from these interviews is when Octavia is asked about writing what she knows, and instead she mentions that she writes what she cares about. She says: “my novels are the best of me. My novels and short stories are the best I have to offer. What I’ve done all my life is tell stories. Find the things I really care about and then tell the stories.”
Octavia’s caring nature is apparent in these interviews as she discusses her worries for the environment, reflects on her childhood and familial relationships, and explains why she writes stories. Contextualizing her work this way makes me see her in a new light—I’ve always thought of her as a thoughtful writer but now I better understand the ways in which she cared about the world, cared about reflecting herself and other Black women in SFF books, and about stories in general. Her determination and brilliance shine through in these interviews. I feel lucky that we’re still getting opportunities to know Octavia 17 years after her passing. This book is an insightful read for any fan of her work, and a worthy addition to collections of books by and about her.
My thanks to NetGalley and Melville House Publishing for providing me with an eARC.
Rating: 4.5/5
My favourite moment from these interviews is when Octavia is asked about writing what she knows, and instead she mentions that she writes what she cares about. She says: “my novels are the best of me. My novels and short stories are the best I have to offer. What I’ve done all my life is tell stories. Find the things I really care about and then tell the stories.”
Octavia’s caring nature is apparent in these interviews as she discusses her worries for the environment, reflects on her childhood and familial relationships, and explains why she writes stories. Contextualizing her work this way makes me see her in a new light—I’ve always thought of her as a thoughtful writer but now I better understand the ways in which she cared about the world, cared about reflecting herself and other Black women in SFF books, and about stories in general. Her determination and brilliance shine through in these interviews. I feel lucky that we’re still getting opportunities to know Octavia 17 years after her passing. This book is an insightful read for any fan of her work, and a worthy addition to collections of books by and about her.
My thanks to NetGalley and Melville House Publishing for providing me with an eARC.
Rating: 4.5/5
September 28, 2023
If you love Octavia Butler, Black speculative writers or are simply looking for a new coffee table book “Octavia E. Butler: The Last Interview” is a must buy. The Last Interview is a series of books that highlight hard to find and unpublished interviews by creative geniuses in art, music, writing, etc. These interviews are transcripts that you won’t find on Google or YouTube.
Octavia Butler’s feature is curated by fellow speculative fiction writer and her long-time friend Samuel R. Delany. There’s a really nice introduction that describes their relationship and provides more insight into Octavia Butler as a writer, but also as a person and a friend.
Octavia Butler’s impact on the writing community is huge, and a few interviews really stuck out to me and provide additional context on Butler’s writing journey and the publishing world more broadly.
In an interview with Terry Gross of Fresh Air, Butler revealed that she found the path to publishing her first three books to be extremely easy. However, with “Kindred” publishers and editors felt that it was a “Black” book and gave her a lot of grief about it’s viability in the book world. I find this interesting, because in my opinion, “Kindred” is written for a white progressive more than it appeals to Black audiences.
There’s many more interesting tidbits in the book. It’s definitely worth adding to your collection.
Rating: 5/5
Thank you to NetGalley and Melville House Publishing for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Octavia Butler’s feature is curated by fellow speculative fiction writer and her long-time friend Samuel R. Delany. There’s a really nice introduction that describes their relationship and provides more insight into Octavia Butler as a writer, but also as a person and a friend.
Octavia Butler’s impact on the writing community is huge, and a few interviews really stuck out to me and provide additional context on Butler’s writing journey and the publishing world more broadly.
In an interview with Terry Gross of Fresh Air, Butler revealed that she found the path to publishing her first three books to be extremely easy. However, with “Kindred” publishers and editors felt that it was a “Black” book and gave her a lot of grief about it’s viability in the book world. I find this interesting, because in my opinion, “Kindred” is written for a white progressive more than it appeals to Black audiences.
There’s many more interesting tidbits in the book. It’s definitely worth adding to your collection.
Rating: 5/5
Thank you to NetGalley and Melville House Publishing for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
September 27, 2023
This 'Last Interview' series provides a nice service for fans of the interviewees, in that it pulls together interviews from various sources over the person's life. This means there's a certain amount of repetition as the interviewee explains the same things to each interviewer, but occasional differences come up.
What's interesting about this book is that Butler is quite forthcoming about her work, where it originated and what she was trying to accomplish. She even has a good answer for that old chestnut of a question, “Where do you get your ideas?”
As one of the few (and for awhile, the only) Black women writing science fiction, she has to deal with questions about race a lot, and about women in SF. That's fine, it's good to know her outlook, but the repetition sometimes seems wearing on her and she pushes back a few times that her books are just 'about' race. Some obviously are ('Kindred' in particular), but others came out of other ideas and research in areas like biology. She really did grow up as a science fiction nerd and wanted to write good, strong science fiction, and include people (like her) who weren't represented in the stuff she grew up with.
This short book would make a nice companion to the Library of America volume on her, since that volume has a few of her published essays that are referred to in the interviews.
What's interesting about this book is that Butler is quite forthcoming about her work, where it originated and what she was trying to accomplish. She even has a good answer for that old chestnut of a question, “Where do you get your ideas?”
As one of the few (and for awhile, the only) Black women writing science fiction, she has to deal with questions about race a lot, and about women in SF. That's fine, it's good to know her outlook, but the repetition sometimes seems wearing on her and she pushes back a few times that her books are just 'about' race. Some obviously are ('Kindred' in particular), but others came out of other ideas and research in areas like biology. She really did grow up as a science fiction nerd and wanted to write good, strong science fiction, and include people (like her) who weren't represented in the stuff she grew up with.
This short book would make a nice companion to the Library of America volume on her, since that volume has a few of her published essays that are referred to in the interviews.
October 22, 2023
Octavia E. Butler: The Last Interview
and Other Conversations
I am so happy I read this book! Actually, I am happy and grateful. I first read Octavia Butler when my science fiction book club read Kindred a few years ago (we loved it but felt it was fantasy and not science fiction). I read her collection Bloodchild and Other Stories when I got it in a nebula award winning humble numbed and really enjoyed it. After that I would buy kindle editions of all of her series when the collected editions went on sale and I read and loved the Xenogenesis trilogy. But her other books stayed on my TBR shelf, getting passed over for newer things.
So I was intrigued when I saw this collection of interviews with Octavia Butler on NetGalley - it seemed like a real sign from the universe.
I have a secret to confess. I love afterwards/acknowledgments in books. I often (actually always) read them first because I love to know what an author was thinking when they wrote their book. So this collection was fantastic for me! It was like an entire book of acknowledgements!!! It helped me remember why I loved Ms. Butler’s writing and her way of thinking about the world. Since I finished this I’ve read Wild Seed and Parable of the Sower and I can’t wait to dive into the next Octavia Butler book on my virtual shelf. I highly recommend this book.
and Other Conversations
I am so happy I read this book! Actually, I am happy and grateful. I first read Octavia Butler when my science fiction book club read Kindred a few years ago (we loved it but felt it was fantasy and not science fiction). I read her collection Bloodchild and Other Stories when I got it in a nebula award winning humble numbed and really enjoyed it. After that I would buy kindle editions of all of her series when the collected editions went on sale and I read and loved the Xenogenesis trilogy. But her other books stayed on my TBR shelf, getting passed over for newer things.
So I was intrigued when I saw this collection of interviews with Octavia Butler on NetGalley - it seemed like a real sign from the universe.
I have a secret to confess. I love afterwards/acknowledgments in books. I often (actually always) read them first because I love to know what an author was thinking when they wrote their book. So this collection was fantastic for me! It was like an entire book of acknowledgements!!! It helped me remember why I loved Ms. Butler’s writing and her way of thinking about the world. Since I finished this I’ve read Wild Seed and Parable of the Sower and I can’t wait to dive into the next Octavia Butler book on my virtual shelf. I highly recommend this book.
October 11, 2023
Thank you NetGalley and Melville House Publishing for the Advanced Reader Copy!
Receiving the ARC couldn't have come at a better time; I'm in the middle of reading the last book in Octavia Bulter's Lilith's Brood trilogy! It was so lovely to read this collection of interviews and hear Bulter describe and contextualize her work in her own words, especially since she passed away way too early (and "hearing" her say that she imagined herself continuing to write into her 80s was heartbreaking!). I already loved Bulter prior to reading this collection, but now I exponentially love her more! This interview collection had a bit of everything with each focusing on different accept of her work and Bulter herself with some overlap. However, since the interviews were ordered chronologically, you could see how Bulter answered the same question over the years and how those responses changed as she did. Reading about her talking about her other books made me really excited to continue reading through her body of work. She was SO ahead of her time and worthy of so much recognition for her incredible prose. This collection is definitely a must-have if you are a Bulter fan!
Receiving the ARC couldn't have come at a better time; I'm in the middle of reading the last book in Octavia Bulter's Lilith's Brood trilogy! It was so lovely to read this collection of interviews and hear Bulter describe and contextualize her work in her own words, especially since she passed away way too early (and "hearing" her say that she imagined herself continuing to write into her 80s was heartbreaking!). I already loved Bulter prior to reading this collection, but now I exponentially love her more! This interview collection had a bit of everything with each focusing on different accept of her work and Bulter herself with some overlap. However, since the interviews were ordered chronologically, you could see how Bulter answered the same question over the years and how those responses changed as she did. Reading about her talking about her other books made me really excited to continue reading through her body of work. She was SO ahead of her time and worthy of so much recognition for her incredible prose. This collection is definitely a must-have if you are a Bulter fan!
September 2, 2023
Thankyou to Melville House and Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
This was a wonderful collection of interviews! Reading Butler’s responses made her come alive and I found myself imagining I was part of an audience soaking up her words. Gone too soon, this collection definitely reminds us to give Butler her flowers – her mind, her thinking, her EVERYTHING was one of a kind.
I will say, however, to pace yourself reading these interviews. I sat through a few in one seating and felt I was reading the same thing over and over again (the nature of an interview I suppose – they tend to ask the same questions).
My one biggest issue with my reading experience was the ARC itself: the formatting and typos took me straight out and I seriously considered DNF’ing because I’m not exaggerating when I say it was hurting my eyes. But for Octavia Butler I suffered through it. Hoping it’s fixed for the final release (which I’m sure it will be.)
All in all, I loved “listening” to Butler and I suddenly have the urge to reread Kindred.
This was a wonderful collection of interviews! Reading Butler’s responses made her come alive and I found myself imagining I was part of an audience soaking up her words. Gone too soon, this collection definitely reminds us to give Butler her flowers – her mind, her thinking, her EVERYTHING was one of a kind.
I will say, however, to pace yourself reading these interviews. I sat through a few in one seating and felt I was reading the same thing over and over again (the nature of an interview I suppose – they tend to ask the same questions).
My one biggest issue with my reading experience was the ARC itself: the formatting and typos took me straight out and I seriously considered DNF’ing because I’m not exaggerating when I say it was hurting my eyes. But for Octavia Butler I suffered through it. Hoping it’s fixed for the final release (which I’m sure it will be.)
All in all, I loved “listening” to Butler and I suddenly have the urge to reread Kindred.
August 27, 2023
The last Interview is a non fiction series in which each book has a series of interviews leading up to the last one they ever did. In this book, we're reading Octavia Butler's interviews.
Typos and formatting was distracting but that's just the arc, so that has no bearing on the book when it actually comes out, assuming those get cleaned up.
I adore Octavia Butler's writing, and honestly was super intrigued to read some interviews with her spanning decades. I wanted to learn more about her, and her process. I just love the way she speaks. She's very direct, and I respond well to that kind of candor. She knew exactly who she was, and it translated in her responses.
My favorite interview was the one she did in 1993, it's a few interviews in. The interviewer asked really great questions that elicited new, and thoughtful answers from Octavia. Then there's an interview she has in 2002 where she hits pretty close to home in predicting the future (our present).
Typos and formatting was distracting but that's just the arc, so that has no bearing on the book when it actually comes out, assuming those get cleaned up.
I adore Octavia Butler's writing, and honestly was super intrigued to read some interviews with her spanning decades. I wanted to learn more about her, and her process. I just love the way she speaks. She's very direct, and I respond well to that kind of candor. She knew exactly who she was, and it translated in her responses.
My favorite interview was the one she did in 1993, it's a few interviews in. The interviewer asked really great questions that elicited new, and thoughtful answers from Octavia. Then there's an interview she has in 2002 where she hits pretty close to home in predicting the future (our present).
September 27, 2023
"Power fascinates me, at least partly because I have so little of it. And people fascinate me. What will they do with power? What will they allow it to do to them? How did they get it? How will they hold it—or lose it? What will it do to their relationships with others? Etc., etc., etc."
Exceptional!
Overall I found Octavia E. Butler: The Last Interview and Other Conversations to be an informative and enjoyable read. Thank you to Melville House Publishing and NetGalley for the gifted copy.
This book is in the format of a collection of interviews that span the length of her life and career. The interviews cover a host of topics including her early years as a young writer and dreamer which created a path into the world of science fiction. The challenges and disparities she would face working as a Black woman in a genre dominated by white men. And later, becoming the first black writer to win the coveted Nebula and Hugo Awards.
I really enjoyed the interviews and how Octavia Butler would remain direct and open about her work all throughout. She was so down to earth and easy to relate to.
Exceptional!
Overall I found Octavia E. Butler: The Last Interview and Other Conversations to be an informative and enjoyable read. Thank you to Melville House Publishing and NetGalley for the gifted copy.
This book is in the format of a collection of interviews that span the length of her life and career. The interviews cover a host of topics including her early years as a young writer and dreamer which created a path into the world of science fiction. The challenges and disparities she would face working as a Black woman in a genre dominated by white men. And later, becoming the first black writer to win the coveted Nebula and Hugo Awards.
I really enjoyed the interviews and how Octavia Butler would remain direct and open about her work all throughout. She was so down to earth and easy to relate to.
June 18, 2024
This was such a refreshing book, presenting interesting conversation with Octavia Butler. I enjoyed learning about her background, personality, and approach to her writing. She loves to write. It is fun for her. And I don’t hear about many writers who are simply in love with what they do. She explained she couldn’t let Dana in Beloved come back to modern day unchanged so she took her arm. I would like to read Bloodchild. Her advice to writers: write every single day. Read everything you can. Talent is not a road block. Tenacity will get you thru. Anything important that happens in your life, changes who you are. You would be the same person without it. What is hybrid vigor? I also would like to read Lilith’s Brood and learn about the Ooloi who is a mix of male & female.
January 6, 2024
I picked up this book on New Year's Even when I was browsing a bookstore with my sister. I thought it would be a good book for the start of the year. And it most certainly was.
This is a collection of interviews with Octavia Butler, including the last interview she gave before her untimely death. She is an interesting interview subject, and this is a nice collections of interview from throughout her career.
It is a little sad to see her answer the same questions in the 70s and the aughts. And it's a little sad to hear her talk about the ideas she had for novels that we never got to see. But it was nice to sit with her ideas and think about the impact her writing had on the world.
This is a collection of interviews with Octavia Butler, including the last interview she gave before her untimely death. She is an interesting interview subject, and this is a nice collections of interview from throughout her career.
It is a little sad to see her answer the same questions in the 70s and the aughts. And it's a little sad to hear her talk about the ideas she had for novels that we never got to see. But it was nice to sit with her ideas and think about the impact her writing had on the world.
March 2, 2025
It's wonderful to have a chance to read interviews with Octavia Butler speaking directly with journalists, in her own voice. That said, many of the interviews become quite repetitive, and if you read them consecutively, you hear the same question and answer again and again, with the variations coming only with regard to Butler's most recently published work. Of course it's a pleasure to learn why her mind turned in that direction and she's delightfully candid about explaining how and why she chose a particular subject. And it's heartening to hear her declare that persistence is the vital quality a writer must have, not talent. She's so humble about her own trailblazing genius.
November 20, 2023
Less a parade of interviewers who haven't read her work asking the same flat questions than usual. She only had to mention Devil Girl from Mars once out of the ten and refer to Steve Barnes and Samuel R. Delany twice. Delany's intro is disjointed and abrupt, and I'm sorry she had to deal with some of the questions from Rosalie G. Harrison. I appreciated most the interview with Randall Kenan who showed his admiration and was actually interactive rather than robotically going through index cards.
November 28, 2023
This collection of interviews provides great insight into the lives and works of Octavia Butler. I enjoyed hearing her speak with different interviewers and the different aspects of her life and work each interviewer focused on. If you are a fan of Octavia Butler, this text is helpful in providing further insight into her and what she was attempting to do in her work. Overall, I would highly recommend this book for anyone looking to learn more about one of the predominant scene fiction writers of our time.
July 4, 2025
I was kind of disappointed that there was so much repetition in the questions interviewers asked, and I guess it's convenient for an author to tell the same stories every time, to have rehearsed answers ready, but it felt kind of silly to read the same sentences more than once.
butler really emphasizes endurance as a key trait (or practice) of successful writers. here, the repetition actually worked for me: there’s no harm in getting constant reminders that the most important thing when it comes to being a writer is to sit down and write.
butler really emphasizes endurance as a key trait (or practice) of successful writers. here, the repetition actually worked for me: there’s no harm in getting constant reminders that the most important thing when it comes to being a writer is to sit down and write.
September 26, 2024
Great insight into one of my favorite authors.
Very thought provoking, reading Miss Butler's responses, to questions through four different decades. 1979-2006. It felt like I was traveling through time as subjects were touched, that were current in the world at each interview session. A book that is capable of stirring some dormant nostalgia from my subconscious back to the forefront for a spell, is always a welcome thing.
Candid and authentic and worthy of a read.
Very thought provoking, reading Miss Butler's responses, to questions through four different decades. 1979-2006. It felt like I was traveling through time as subjects were touched, that were current in the world at each interview session. A book that is capable of stirring some dormant nostalgia from my subconscious back to the forefront for a spell, is always a welcome thing.
Candid and authentic and worthy of a read.
January 24, 2024
I really loved reading these interviews with this fascinating woman. She loved what she did and she worked hard, before anyone noticed the strength of her writing. She is inspiring. She talked about losing a telemarketing job a few days before Christmas and crying about it…and later she flew high. What a story.
October 23, 2025
Octavia Butler was so ahead of her time. I hope she didn't feel lonely being so revolutionary. This collection of interviews was enjoyable, and her insights are, as always, so fascinating. I think, as a book, though, it is a little repetitive. However, that could also be because interviewers can lack curiosity.
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