Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Butler, Octavia - Octavia Butler with Stephen W. Potts (interview date November 1996)

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Octavia Butler with Stephen W. Potts (interview date November 1996)

SOURCE: "'We Keep Playing the Same Record': A Conversation with Octavia E. Butler," in Science-Fiction Studies, Vol. 23, Part 3, No. 70, November, 1996, pp. 331-38.

[In the following interview, Butler discusses the science-fiction genre, responses to her work, and themes her work addresses.]

For readers of this journal, Octavia E. Butler literally needs no introduction. Her exquisite, insightful works—especially the three Xenogenesis novels, (Dawn, Adulthood Rites, Imago) and her award-winning story "Bloodchild"—have been discussed and analyzed more than once in these pages.

One usually has to get up early in the morning to reach Ms. Butler. A private person, she prefers writing in the predawn hours and by eight AM is frequently out of the house on the day's business. She has other claims to uniqueness: she is a native of Los Angeles who does not drive;...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Ruth Salvaggio (essay date Summer 1984)
   2. Octavia Butler with Frances M. Beal (interview date March/April 1986)
   3. Sandra Y. Govan (essay date Spring-Summer 1986)
   4. Adele S. Newson (review date Summer 1989)
   5. Frances Bonner (essay date Spring 1990)
   6. Hoda M. Zaki (essay date July 1990)
   7. Octavia Butler with Randall Kenan (interview date Spring 1991)
   8. Orson Scott Card (review date January 1992)
   9. Michelle Erica Green (essay date 1994)
   10. Rebecca O. Johnson (review date February 1994)
   11. Elyce Rae Helford (essay date Summer 1994)
   12. Hoda Zaki (review date July 1994)
   13. Cathy Peppers (essay date March 1995)
   14. Jim Miller (review date February/March 1996)
   15. Danille Taylor-Guthrie (review date 31 March 1996)
   16. Octavia Butler with Stephen W. Potts (interview date November 1996)
   17. Madelyn Jablon (essay date 1997)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright

1. Octavia Butler