octavia butler

Stephanie Hammer's Official Blog

about 11 years ago i had the great pleasure of talking to one of my favorite writers for a longish time. the writer was octavia butler and she was getting ready to finish the parable of the sower. she was relaxed, unpretentious, and happy to talk about her books. statuesque and devoid of bullshit, she was a delight to speak with at UCR at the Eaton Conference, where she was a speaker.

Octavia Butler's fiction inspired me to write sf, futurist work, and to try to talk about race and difference.

i guess we sf girls better start writing.

goodbye octavia. thank you for imago, and the porous organic space ships, and fathers who give birth, and always women who survive.

rejections rejections and delayed gratification

"Demonic" got rejected for the second time. i so like that story and it's making me mad. then there's my lovely experience with soft skull. who dumped my novel manuscript in an envelope (hey that was MY envelope) and mailed it back to me. unread. tod goldberg says they are no longer taking unsols -- question; then why the fuck don't they just say THAT on their website. ooh, it might cause their scenester, indie, neo-left but not really we are as commercial as the next guy image to falter ever so slightly. i HATE THAT. I HATE pretentious assholes of any generation who pretend to be all leftist and egalitarian and who are serious capitalists underneath their alterative t-shirts. FUCK!

so, i wonder, what exactly it is I am trying to do.....

write, share, get the work out there. teach, think about this ruin called the university, make a difference, perform, make art, have joy, love, happiness and a really good chardonnay.

ok.

lillian says i can't expect things to get easier. which seems smart. it's this hippy idealism, and baby-boomer sense of entitlement. this must we why i so dig the gen x-ers. they really know better.

on to more work and more writing, and someday somehow breaking through. again. some more.