Patternmaster

OCTAVIA E. BUTLER writes: “I am a 53-year-old writer who can remember being a 10-year-old writer and who expects someday to be an 80-year-old writer. I’m also comfortably asocial—a hermit in the middle of Seattle—a pessimist if I’m not careful, a feminist, a black, a former Baptist, an oil-and-water combination of ambition, laziness, insecurity, certainty, and drive.

I’ve had 11 novels published so far:

Patternmaster, Mind ofMy Mind, Survivor, Kindred, Wild Seed, Clay’s Ark, Dawn, Adulthood Rites, Imago, Parable oj the Sower, and Parable of the Talents, as well as a collection of my shorter work, entitled Bloodchild. I’ve also had short stories published in anthologies and magazines. One, “Speech Sounds,” won a Hugo Award as best short story of 1984. Another, “Bloodchild,” won both the 1985 Hugo and the 1984 Nebula awards as best novelette. My most recent novel, Parable of the Talents, won the 1999

Nebula for Best Novel.”

—Octavia E. Butler

Of special Note: In 1995, Octavia E. Butler was awarded a MacArtbur Fellowship. The program, funded by the John

D. and Catherine T MacArtbur Foundation, rewards creative people who push the boundaries of their fields. In 2000, she received the PEN Center West Lifetime Achievement Award.