Octavia Butler's papers
This article was mentioned by Tananarive Due on Facebook:

Octavia Butler's papers going to the Huntington Library.



Also, I'll mention again the Octavia Butler event occurring this evening in San Francisco: Color Me SF: The Science Fiction Worlds of Octavia Butler and Carl Brandon. The current speaker line-up includes Jewelle Gomez, Claire Light and Marta Acosta.

http://www.litquake.org/festival-schedule-2009/

http://www.sfinsf.org/

There is a $5 admission for the event (to go to the Octavia E. Butler Scholarship Fund).

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Octavia Butler panel at LitQuake (San Francisco)
LitQuake, an annual literary event in San Francisco, just announced their schedule for this year:

http://www.litquake.org/festival-schedule-2009/


SATURDAY, October 10

Color Me SF: The Science Fiction Worlds of Octavia Butler and Carl Brandon, 7:00 p.m. Variety Club Screening Room, 582 Market.


(Update)
And because I'm slow, it only now occurred to me it might be an "SF in SF"-related event ... and it is! http://www.sfinsf.org/?p=943


Hope to see you there!

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The Many Faces of Sci-Fi

Do you exist? Are you a POC and reader of SF/F? If so, there's a unicorn roll-call.

The reason is Lois McMaster Bujold seems surprised that there are so many POC sci-fi/fantasy genre fans. She figures we didn't exist until the internet happened.

Hmmm, I wonder what that says about Octavia and those of us who love her. 

Current Mood: annoyed

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Hope this year has been a good one so far for everyone.

This marks three years since Ms. Butler's passing, but hopefully there are good things in store for us, such as ...

"Looking for artists for Octavia Butler graphic novel" post by desayunoencama:
http://desayunoencama.livejournal.com/363522.html


Also, in San Francisco later this year there might be an Octavia Butler panel at a literary event. Stay tuned.

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Butler article in print!


Hello, Butleristas! I posted a few months back asking for help fleshing out an article about humans and aliens mating in sci fi--and my thanks again for all the ideas you pitched in. Originally I had conceived the article as just being about Butler's distinctive ideas about xenogenesis, but it grew into a sweeping survey of the topic--with a huge chunk of Butler as the culmination of the article.

Anyway, just wanted to mention that the article just got published in the current issue of the feminist magazine Bitch. Should be on magazine racks and library shelves even now. Would love to hear your ideas on how it turned out! Starts off with a full-page "family snapshot" of Judith and her Oankali family...Feels good to keep nudging her work into some small spotlight or another, I gotta say.

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Obviously
There will never be another Octavia...but I'm curious to hear whom folks think of in the same regard. Who is the author where you think what they speak of, who they are, where they're coming from, and all that jazz clicks into place for you?

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Last chance to apply for the 2008 Clarion West Writers Workshop!
Applications for this year's Clarion West Writers Workshop must be RECEIVED by March 1. March 2nd is too late. (Please note that this deadline is a month earlier than it was in previous years.)

We recommend that after February 24 applicants send their materials via email to ensure that they arrive on time. Our newly redesigned website makes this easier than ever.

The upcoming session (June 22 to August 1) will be taught by Paul Park, Mary Rosenblum, Cory Doctorow, Connie Willis, Sheree R. Thomas, and Chuck Palahniuk, our 2008 Susan C. Petrey Fellow. For information on the workshop, scholarships, and how to apply, visit our website at www.clarionwest.org/workshop.

Clarion West is a non-profit literary organization committed to equal opportunity. Minority and special-needs students are encouraged to apply.

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Xenogenesis in pop culture?
Hello, Octavia Butler fans!

I'm hoping you can help me brainstorm. Octavia Butler uses the concept of 'xenogenesis' in many of her works (not just the Lillith's Brood trilogy), and I'm working on an article for a magazine that explores this concept of, well, deliberately breeding with alien critters.

What *other* science fiction can you think of that explores this theme? Or does it come up in other pop-culture realms beyond scifi?

Thanks in advance for your ideas.

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NEW APPLICATION DEADLINES FOR CLARION AND CLARION WEST
Both the Clarion and Clarion West Writing Workshops have changed their application deadlines to March 1 for their 2008 sessions. The joint decision to move the deadlines forward by one full month will ensure that successful applicants have more time to prepare for six weeks of writing, critiquing, and studying with some of fantasy and science fiction’s top authors and editors. It also allows more time for organizations sponsoring workshop scholarships to select recipients.

“It’s never easy to carve such a large chunk of time out of your life,” Clarion West Executive Director Leslie Howle said. “The earlier students receive notice that they’ve been accepted into the workshop, the better prepared they’ll be when they arrive in Seattle.”

“This will give our student writers extra time to plan for their Clarion experience,” said James Patrick Kelly, Vice Chair of the Clarion Foundation. “We want to get the word out well ahead of time, since it’s a change from our longstanding policy.”

Clarion, founded in 1968, and now in its second year on the campus of the University of California, San Diego, is run by the non-profit Clarion Foundation. Their website is at clarion.ucsd.edu/.

Clarion West, a non-profit organization, has presented the Clarion West Writers Workshop annually in Seattle, Washington since 1984. Their website is at www.clarionwest.org.

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Another Late Night Butler Find
It's an excerpt from Dawn, thanks to octaviabutler.net and Crystal Page Productions. This is the first live action rendering of any of her work I've seen done.

And I must say...not bad:

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Octavia E. Butler Podcast Interview, One of the Last Before Her Passing...
Here it is.

*crossposted

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I hope this isn't inappropriate
But a year or so ago, I found (and purchased) a copy of this, and I hadn't even known it existed - when I saw another go up on ebay, I wanted to share the fact with real fans. I am in NO way connected with the auction - just an ebay addict...

http://cgi.ebay.com/Signed-Limited-OCTAVIA-E-BUTLER-SSH-23-Editors-Set_W0QQitemZ160152768026QQihZ006QQcategoryZ29223QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

This is a signed, numbered, leatherbound chapbook of the short story "The Evening and the Morning and the Night". It's now available in the Bloodchild and other stories collection; but for *years*, I only had it in my old Omni Magazine.

...and if anyone on this list gets it, I'd love to hear a *squee* from you :)

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The Extras On the TV Mini-Series Dune DVD: Octavia Butler
I was watching it last week and happened to flip the box over when I read Octavia Butler's name...

Not believing what I'd read I went through all the extra features until a found a special panel on speculative fiction's role in the real future.

Guess who the only non-white, non-male on the panel was?

Yup.

Ms. Butler.

I've never had the pleasure of seeing her in person, so this was a real surprise treat for me. :)

If you own the DVD or it's on your Netflix cue, it's on disc: #2


*crossposted to deadbrowalking, thesower, and octaviabutler

Current Mood: cold

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Notes from Butler lecture: “Gifts, Directives, and Gothic Trips: The Legacy of Octavia Butler.”
Sandra Govan, Professor of English at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte, gave a talk at the Huntington Library tonight for a crowd of about 60 people. She started off with a list of Butler's works on overhead projector, calling it a "low-tech powerpoint." Govan said that she'd been tempted to change the first word of the title to "grits" since Butler had the audactiry, courage, nerve, and patience that characterizes "true grit" (and also because grits are tasty!), but decided that the concept of gifts was a little more accurate because Butler's writings were really a gift to us--the author had a high regard for her audience and wanted to live up to her reader's respect.

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Last chance to apply for 2007 Clarion West Workshop!
Applications for the 2007 session of Clarion West must be RECEIVED by 11:59 P.M. Sunday, April 1.

Running late? Apply via email here.

The upcoming session (June 17 to July 27) will be taught by Nancy Kress, Larissa Lai, Graham Joyce, Kelley Eskridge, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, and Samuel R. Delany, our 2007 Susan C. Petrey Fellow. For scholarship info and details on the workshop and application process, see the Clarion West web site.

Clarion West is a non-profit literary organization committed to equal opportunity. Minority and special-needs students are encouraged to apply.



Scholarship assistance is available, including the newly-established Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship which provides full funding (tuition and room and partial board) for a writer of color, thanks to donations from Ms. Butler's friends, colleagues, publishers, and readers. It is administered by the Carl Brandon Society and is available to one writer of color attending Clarion West and one writer of color attending Clarion each year.

I'm posting this to a few other communities with slightly overlapping memberships, so my apologies if you're seeing it more than once.

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Upcoming Butler-related events
Some upcoming events paying tribute to the late, great writer Octavia E. Butler (Posted to thesower a few days ago; added Sandra Govan's lecture):

February 18: Festival Sundiata, Seattle Center in Seattle, Washington. The Festival runs February 16 - 18, 2007, with the tribute held Sunday, February 18, from 1:45 to 3:15 PM, Seattle Center House, Conference Room H (upstairs, behind the stage). It will include a video by filmmaker Asli Dukan, and a choral reading of Octavia's work. Click here for more information about Festival Sundiata.

February 28 : The Martin Ridge Lecture: Octavia Butler’s Legacy. Friends' Hall, Huntington Library, in San Marino, California (near Pasadena). Wednesday, February 28, 7:30 pm. The late author Octavia Butler left her readers invaluable gifts, not the least of which were her acclaimed science fiction novels. Sandra Govan, professor of English at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte, will discuss Butler’s life and work in a lecture titled “Gifts, Directives, and Gothic Trips: The Legacy of Octavia Butler.” Free.

For more information about the Huntington Library, click here; for Sandra Govan's tribute to Octavia E. Butler, click here.

March 1: Tribute to Octavia E. Butler and a celebration of her work, Thursday, March 1, at 7 PM. Nalo Hopkinson, Vonda N. McIntyre, Nisi Shawl, Jerry Large, Timeca Briggs, and Leslie Howle for a tribute to Octavia's work combined with the reading and signing of Nalo's latest novel, The New Moon's Arms. The evening will be hosted by the Washington Center for the Book, the Central District Forum, the Carl Brandon Society, and Elliott Bay Book Company in the Main Library's Microsoft Auditorium, 1000 Fourth Avenue, Seattle, Washington.

Click here for more information about the Seattle Public Library; see here for more information about the Central District Forum; see here for more information about the Carl Brandon Society; and here for more information about the Elliott Bay Book Company.

See Nalo's web site for more information about Nalo Hopkinson, whose book tour had been planned last year as a joint tour with Octavia to celebrate Nalo's new book, The New Moon's Arms, and the paperback edition of Octavia's last book, Fledgling.

March 3: Tribute to Octavia E. Butler with Nalo Hopkinson and friends. Saturday, March 3, at 6:30 PM, Marcus Books, 3900 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Oakland, California.

March 4: A fundraiser for the Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship to send a writer of color to one of the Clarion writers workshops, featuring Nalo Hopkinson, Jewelle Gomez, and friends. Sunday, March 3, 5-7 PM. The Starry
Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley, CA 510-841-2082 (near Ashby BART station on the Richmond line). For more information, contact: Claire Light (seelight44 @ yahoo dot com).

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Octavia Butler lecture in February
Hello, Team Octavia,

Just got my newsletter from the Huntington Library in San Marino, CA (near Pasadena, Octavia's old stomping-grounds). It turns out that on Feb. 28, 2007 they're doing a free public lecture about her work!

Octavia Butler’s Legacy
The Martin Ridge Lecture

Feb. 28 (Wednesday) 7:30 p.m.

The late author Octavia Butler left her readers invaluable gifts, not the least of which were her acclaimed science fiction novels. Sandra Govan, professor of English at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte, will discuss Butler’s life and work in a lecture titled “Gifts, Directives, and Gothic Trips: The Legacy of Octavia Butler.” Free. Friends’ Hall.

More info on the Huntington Library is here.

Plus a blurb on Professor Govan here.

Give a shout if any of you think you can make it out, would love to meet you there!

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two Octavia tangents
I think I mentioned in an earlier octaviabutler post that sometimes stories on the news make me wonder what Ms Butler would have done with them? The story about Boeing winning a contract to do border security put me in a very Butleresque mood.

By the way, on the topic of interesting sci-fi, has anyone else read Atomik Aztex by Sesshu Foster? Talk about bizarre time-travel/parallel universe experiments...

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Octavia notes
Been meaning to post a few Octavia-related notices here, finally getting around to it:

Susie Bright is using an excerpt from Fledgling in her upcoming Best American Erotica 2007 compilation. She discusses her reaction to Butler's death in the comments section of her Amazon.com blog, here.

One of Alison Bechdel's Dykes to Watch Out For strips had an Octavia Butler reference in it a while back--a character was reading a Butler book while the plot unfolded around her--can't find the particular strip in the online archives right now but it was there at some point!

And this is pretty awesome--the City of Pasadena (Butler's hometown) has established an Octavia Butler Memorial Scholarship. Butler was going to come down and give a talk in Pasadena (I think Kindred was being read by all the schools in the city, in their One City One Story program), but she died before the talk happened so the city & library teamed up to use the speaker's fee as the seed money for a scholarship. It's targeted specifically at young women attending Pasadena City College (one of Butler's schools) who come from less-than-affluent backgrounds, and who want to be writers. So totally appropriate, I'm getting all teary-eyed again just typing this. (Links in this paragraph lead to articles, bios, teaching tools--check it out.)

And two quick personal notes: First, I frequently find myself hearing news stories on different scientific discoveries and getting the knee-jerk reaction of "Oh, I wonder if Octavia has heard this yet! She could go to *town* on this topic!" And then I shake myself, remembering that she has a very different relationship with the news these days.

Thing two is that I've been catching up on big name SciFi authors that I hadn't read yet--Heinlein, Ing, P.K. Dick--and while some of their work is good, I am so glad that Butler's voice has brought that genre into a whole new realm. (Yes, "sci-fi" isn't really the right category for a lot of her work, but you see my point.)

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