I took classes taught by an elderly woman who wrote children's stories. She was polite about the science fiction and fantasy that I kept handing in, but she finally asked in exasperation, 'Can't you write anything normal?'

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• Octavia E. Butler:

  Science fiction, extrasensory perception, and black people are judged by the worst elements they pr

• Octavia E. Butler:

  Hollywood wants to go for the flash, because that's what a lot of them think science fiction is.

• Octavia E. Butler:

  Most of us don't have to worry about being shot if we poke our noses outside. So we are comfortable

• Octavia E. Butler:

  No, I think the future of humanity will be like the past, we'll do what we've always done and there

• Octavia E. Butler:

  Religion kept some of my relatives alive, because it was all they had. If they hadn't had some hope

• Octavia E. Butler:

  Third, for people who aren't doing it already, take classes - they're worthwhile. Workshops or clas

• Octavia E. Butler:

  While Fledging is a different type of book, The Parable series serve as cautionary tales. I wrote t

• Octavia E. Butler:

  You don't start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it's good stuff, an

• Octavia E. Butler:

  Too many writers get into that gross-'em-out factor.

• Octavia E. Butler:

  Movies are extremely imitative of one another. Whatever works, people will try to do it.