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" Octavia Butler was more interested in writing a good story than in worrying about where to slot it. "

Karen Joy Fowler

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" Octavia Butler often described herself as an outsider, but within science fiction, she was loved as an insider, someone who was a fan first and came to S.F. writing as an enthusiastic reader. "

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" I was pretty happy with how my career had gone, mainly because of the enormous freedom I've had to write what I've wanted to write. I had a very clear picture of who I was as a writer. "

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" Technically a memoir, 'The Woman Warrior' becomes almost magical through its inclusion of folk tales, dreams, and revisions. "

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" All best-of lists should close with the amazing Kelly Link. "

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" My books have occasionally been of mixed success. It's not like I have gone from triumph to triumph. I have had a couple of books do very, very well and a couple do very, very badly. "

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" I do read all my work aloud as I'm working - this has made it a little hard to adjust to my husband's retirement. I can shout the shouty parts if I'm alone in the house, but of course, I feel a fool if someone is there to hear me. "

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" I hear so many writers say - and these are writers that I trust completely - 'I just started hearing a voice', or, 'The characters came to life'. I am filled with loathing for my own characters when I hear that because they do nothing of the sort. Left to their own devices, they do nothing but drink coffee and complain about their lives. "

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" In certain ways, we, many of us, stopped paying attention to the world. I have to think we would have moved on the whole climate issue in a different way if we'd been paying better attention. "

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" I learned how to comport myself among trolls, elves, hobbits or goblins. I learned that a friend can be lost to greed and avarice. I learned that solving riddles may be as important a survival skill as bowmanship. I know how to talk to a dragon, and that it's best not to. "

Karen Joy Fowler

" The process of writing a book is so removed in my mind from the process of publishing it that I often forget for great stretches that I eventually hope to do the latter. "

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" If I'm made to pick one transcendent reading experience, then it was listening to Miss Sarzin as - if we'd been very, very good - she read the next chapter of 'The Hobbit' aloud to us. "

Karen Joy Fowler

" I have always been a generous and enthusiastic reader. "

Karen Joy Fowler

" I read my books to writing workshops and friends, and I'm often focussed just on keeping them entertained. I never think about marketing at all. "

Karen Joy Fowler

" I assume that we are all limited by our own brains and experiences and can only understand other people and other creatures through a kind of translation that brings them closer to us. "

Karen Joy Fowler

" Miss Sarzin was the best teacher I ever had. "

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" I can't say that winning the Pen/Faulkner was a dream come true because I would never have dared to dream it. "

Karen Joy Fowler

" I had a very loyal cult-like following, I feel. And I don't mean to complain about that. "

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" The smart way to build a literary career is you create an identifiable product, then reliably produce that product so people know what they are going to get. That's the smart way to build a career, but not the fun way. Maybe you can think about being less successful and happier. That's an option, too. "

Karen Joy Fowler

" Often, when you look at history, at least through the lens that many of us have looked at history - high school and college courses - a lot of the color gets bled out of it. You're left with a time period that does not look as strange and irrational as the time you're actually living through. "

Karen Joy Fowler

" Butler's novel 'Kindred' may be the book most widely read by readers outside science fiction; it has been assigned as a text in classrooms and has sold steadily since its publication in 1979. "

Karen Joy Fowler

Science Fiction