Disclaimer: In writing this blog, I realize the cost of
embracing fear on many, many levels.
I remember the day I first heard about Octavia Butler.
Unfortunately it was the day NPR announced she had crossed. I can't recall the
interview. It's been 8 years. She crossed
4months after my grandmother crossed, and 3 months after I was laid off from my
job, a day after starting graduate school. I lived in my bathrobe for much of
that winter. My brain hurt.
It took a while for my brain to process Octavia was a black,
female, science-fiction writer. I'm trying to remember which emotion I felt
first. Surprised that black people wrote science fiction. Happy that black
people wrote science fiction. Really, really, really damn sad I wouldn't be
able to meet her in this existence.
My husband and I listened to an audiobook of Kindred and it was an indescribable
feeling of what awe and liberation feels like (I know that sounds weird given
what Kindred is about), what opening
a door that just appeared and finding every joy that ever existed feels like. I
felt the twinge of possibility and it
has taken 7 years to build enough momentum to bring my stories to light. But do
you want to know something very odd? I didn't get a chance to finish listening
to Kindred. The audiobook was a book
on cassette I checked out from the library. The cassette was very old and I had
to turn up the volume to be able to hear the narrator. My husband and I gave up
on the tape and made a promise we would find her books and read them. I have 6
of her books sitting on my shelf, waiting to be read.
At first I felt like an ass because I haven't opened a
single book, but I don’t think I was ready to read her stories until now. Over
the last year or so, in my search for writers of color, I found NK Jemisin, rediscovered Nalo Hopkinson (I had Brown Girl in the Ring for a stupid long time before reading it), Saladin Ahmed, and so many more.
I was never alone. *squishy feeling on the inside.*
In knowing Octavia existed, the block of "you can't
write science fiction because you're black" no longer has a right to
exist. To continue to allow the block to exist, meant, 1, I continued to be
unconscious, and for reasons other than writing, I try to do my best to be
"militant" about due diligence. 2, everything Octavia stood for in
regard to being a human being, whose legacy is worth carrying on, and not
because she was black and not because she was a woman, made it hard to ignore
and insulting to her memory if I didn't at the very least try to bring my
stories into the light.
There is much momentum in trying. I've seen people give 2
craps about something and it comes into being with little effort.
What can I do when I put Love around an idea? That's some
pretty powerful stuff. I met an artist and yoga instructor who wrote paper on an
Octavia Butler series for her class. I met a professor who taught Parable of the Sower to her students. Many
of them loved it so much they read Parable
of the Talents on their own.
So that's where I am at the moment. I sent the beta readers Tempest Makers late last night, and instead
of twiddling my thumbs, I'll read Kindred
and work on text for a website.
Take care.
Talk to you later.
