User:OwenZeph/sandbox

Entry#1
6 March 2015

Today i learned how to access someone's wiki page on the Wikipedia website. Also that through Wikipedia you can give people links to articles that would normally not be easy to access. Also that no information on wikipedia is an original idea and nothing is plagiarized, everything written is written in everyone's own words. Everything put onto wikipedia is time stamped at the time it is added and cannot be erased off the in internet. Other people can edit or add on to what i put onto Wikipedia. When editing on Wikipedia people have to give a reason as to why they are changing what someone else has put onto the site. People can message other on Wikipedia in talk to discuss if they want to add or edit content on Wikipedia.

Entry #2
13 March 2015

Today i learned why it is that my class will be editing Octavia E. Butlers wiki page. She is a science fiction writer who grew up during times where there weren't many black writers. As a class we learned many things about how she lived her life such as that as a child she read many books. All the books she read were about fantasy so she started to develop a likeness for fantasy and started to think up her own fantasy stories from a young age. She was a shy person so she didn't talk to many people so when asking for feedback there wasn't really much help for her. Eventually she started entering competitions and when she started winning it was a sign to her that she was going in the right direction. Eventually she sold her first short story and a couple years after that a few more books that started to raise her fame in the science fiction world.

Entry #3
20 March 2015

Today we researched the subject on Octavia's writing and other people's options of her. She was the first black science fiction writers who wrote stories with the main protagonist being colored and female. Her stories mostly comprised characters that exhibit trait that are not very human, usually being who are modified genetically to be better than humans to create a barrier so that that would not be compared to humans. Her stories showed many instances of racial and sexual prejudice that brought the black and feminist communities into the science fiction world.

Entry #4
27 March 2015

today i learned what the differences between paraphrasing, summarizing and quoting. Then after that i read a biography on Octavia Butler and and had to analyze the college portion of life to both summarize and paraphrase. I learned that Octavia Butler acquired a degree in history at Pasadena City college. Also that after she graduated she started attending California state university and while there held many jobs including factory, clerical, and warehouse work. Also while she was at school she studied biology, physical science, and genetics in order to use those components in her writing.

Entry #5
17 April 2015

Today we returned to the assignment we did from the last class for editing. Except this time we had to switch assignments and edit the work our group members did instead of our own. We our partners works and decided if there was something that needed to be added or not. After which we reentered them into google doc and Prof. X sat with us and went over the additions we made to see what we had to change. Then she told us other information that we could add to improve on the edits we made so far. Then we added the new edits and updated the errors we made to upload to google docs.

Entry #6
24 April 2015

Today in class we sat in groups and read each others work. While reading we searched for any mistakes that we or the other group had made. Then we talked about the errors and gave ideas on how to improve that sentence. Then we broke back off into our individual group and then fixed the errors that were pointed out. After we fixed the mistakes we then coded the references so so that we could add it to the sandboc.

Entry #7
1 May 2015

First thing we did in class today was an extra credit assignment involving paraphrasing while we were in groups. We had 5 minutes each to paraphrase 2 sentences as many time we could in the time limit. Then we had to get back in our groups and vote on what if we should keep the "Themes of social criticism" and "Interviews" sections. Then in our groups we had to edit the sections on Octavia Butlers Wiki page, and add the new section that we had created.

Entry #8
8 May 2015

First we got into groups to discuss research assignment number 5, after which we began presentations. the order was 1. Brox, Ali. "‘Every age has the vampire it needs’: Octavia Butler's Vampiric Vision in Fledgling.”, 2. Morris, Susana M. “Black Girls Are from the Future: Afrofuturist Feminism in Octavia E. Butler's Fledgling.”, 3. Shaviro, Steven. “Exceeding the Human: Power and Vulnerability in Octavia Butler’s Fiction.”, 4. Bast, Florian. “‘I won’t always ask’: Complicating Agency in Octavia Butler’s Fledgling.”, 5. Strong, Melissa J. “The Limits of Newness: Hybridity in Octavia E. Butler's Fledgling.”, and 6. Evans, Shari. “From ‘Hierarchical Behavior’ to Strategic Amnesia: Structures of Memory and Forgetting in Octavia Butler’s Fledgling.”. Then after that was done we did research assignment #6 in our groups.

Entry #9
5 May 2015

Today we had a visit from Sanchez Taylor and we discussed her article " Octavia Butler’s Fledgling and Daniel Jose Older’s "Phantom Overload": The Ethnic Undead" and talked about the different themes that we would use for the group topics. Then after her visit ended we then got into groups of three and made up topic sentences for the different themes we were going to talk about, after which we all looked at the different responses everyone added. Once that was done we were put into groups to edit sections for the Fledgling article. Editing Team 1 Workspace: Characters, Hybridity, Agency; Editing Team 2 Workspace: Reception, The revision of the vampire figure, Difference as means of survival; Editing Team 3 Workspace: Backgrounds, The construction of race, Racism/speciecism/supremacism; Editing Team 4 Workspace: Plot, Mutualistic symbiosis, Alternative sexualities.

Question 1
The five fears/anxieties represented by vampires are White supremacy, anti-religion, homosexuality, gender ideology, and deviant behavior.

Question 2
According to Morris today's popular culture affirms vampires values with autonomy, family, and race.

Question 3
In both Gomez and Butler's story the vampires learn to live with the humans that they feed off of rather than just use them and treat thm only as food, and while traditional vampires represent white power and sexuality black vampires show more of a symbiotic relationship with humans.

Question 4
Afrofuturism is African American culture's appropriation of technology, or their attempt to include African American technology ideals in the future through the use of science fiction writing. The main concern for afrofuturist is portraying the importance of the connection between race and futurist fiction. Afrofuturist do want to replace the domination of white with the domination of blacks but only as a form of liberation. In Octavia Butler's work she emphasizes visions of a future with colored people and she also critiques conventional systems of power and dominance while offering afrofuturist solutions.

Question 5
In Ina Fmilies rather than having the Ina(vampire) have full control in the relationship it is instead shared with the symbionts creating a codependency the the symbionts. Rather than obey orders, they talk and understand each other to come to a solution. In terms of the feminist concerns not only is the main character of the story a female but it is a fact that all female Ina are superior to men, they may harm men with their bites but at the same time cannot bite each other, creating more of an equality with female Ina, while having dominance over the males.

Question 6
According to Morris these writers are actively changing the minds of their readers and opening them up to the feminist and afrofuturits ideals. Their writing depicts a future that is being enhanced by black culture rather than the conventions white European life style.

Fledgling Review
1. Crow said that it was a dark, elegantly written fable that followed the life of a vampire Shori, who does what she needs to in order to survive. The title of this section was Gothic studies, which makes sense because instead of criticizing the dark aspects of the stories, it seems that instead Charles praises them. Crow talks mostly of the dark parts of the story more than the light parts.

2. "She cannot help it; an injured vampire needs meat to survive and recover. Shori, the vampire-heroine of the novel, has been shot, beaten, and burned, and is temporarily blind, and kills the man out of raw instinct. She also suffers from amnesia, and has no memory of the attack that destroyed her community and family, or how she escaped it."

"Though she is in her fifties, Shori has the appearance of a twelve-year-old human girl, and is old enough for sex with humans, but not with male Ina." "The amnesia is an effective device for generating plot and exposition. Shori needs to find out who she is, where other creatures like herself might be, and how she came to be injured. Since she must learn about vampires (or Ina),the reader learns also. In Butler’s envisioning, Ina are a parallel species to humans, possibly of Earth origin, possibly extraterrestrial: the vampires themselves do not know. Whatever their beginnings, they now need human blood to survive."

3.Difference as a means to survival, Alternative sexual relations/ sexuality/ family relations, The revision of the vampire figure

4.Crow, Charles L. "Fledgling." " by Crow, Charles L. New York: Seven Stories Press, 0 Jan. 2105. Web. 08 May 2015.

Chapter 1-6
In the beginning of the first chapter the reader is introduced to a first person point of view narrator. The narrator does not give their name, what they begin to talk about is that they realize that they are lying but not in a bed with a pillow and sheets, but on the ground with leaves and dirt, and gravel. Then they express that they are feeling pain and hunger, for a while an animal comes across them lying down. They are to weakened to put effort into catching the animal so they wait until the animal was comfortable around them and then grabbed the animal and began to eat it. The narrator wakes up the next morning and begins to walk in search of new food because the food left over had begun to rot. As they walk they realize that they are coming out of a cave that had given here shelter while she was injured and examined herself to see all types of injures that were healing. The narrator then noticed that they were bare of clothes and felt like they were in need of them. They came across a burned house where they found clothes and later hunted for more food and lived in a tree and shallow trench for 3 days. On the fourth day living in this area by them self they felt as though they needed human companions. The narrator walked out of the forest and came across a road in which they walked alongside. Eventually a young man drives by and sees her and asks if she is okay. She replied that she did, not knowing what she actually meant by that until after she answered. Then the young man offered her a ride during which he was asking her about herself. Seeing her covered in blood he asked if she needed a hospital she said she didn’t want to go there. He seemed to be going there against her wishes so she struggles to get out of the car. During the struggle she ended up biting him causing him pain but later starts to lick his hand where she bit him. Then they pull over and even thought the young man was angry he began to raise his hand to hit her but put it back down and decided not to. He then tells her that the licking she did on his hand felt good. She then asked if she could bite him again and he agreed. She then bit his neck and began to lick the blood that came out from where she had bitten. He then comes to the conclusion that she is a vampire and she now know what she is, he offers her a place to stay at his uncle’s cabin and named her Renee. Renee is told by the young man that his name is Wright Hamlin, he was a college drop out from the University of Washington and was now a construction worker. As they got closer to where he lived he told Renee to hid so that no on would see her when they entered the neighborhood. Renee start to realize more things about her affects on Wright as they are driving, one being that she shouldn't take blood from him all the time because it will weaken him. Wright begins to describe to Renee what it mean to be a vampire and the many thing that he learned about them from movies. When they get in the house Wright begins to strip Renee in order to examine her and she lets him, at one point they stand next to a mirror where Renee sees herself for the first time. She sees herself as a stranger and then examines the difference between her teeth and Wright's. She discovers that she uses raw meat for healing and child birth and human blood for nourishment. She takes a shower and after coming out begins to talk to Wright and the two end up making love in his bed room. Renee was awake during the night and had began to examine the area around Wright's house so that she could find other people to feast off of without causing a commotion. When she had reached the first house she realized that she had more greater abilities than people like wright such as strength and agility. Some of her memories come back and she remembers things about guns being shot at her before. She first stumbles across a sleeping women, at first she holds her down then when she has her in a tight enough hold bites her and begins licking the woman's blood.After she's done she finds out the women's name is Theodora Harden who she instructs to leave her window open and await her next arrival. she does this same thing to 4 other people 2 men and 2 women, and while doing this realizes that her saliva has both a hypnotic and healing factor to it. Renee remembers what had happened during her first hours after waking up and realizes that the first thing she killed to heal herself wasn't a deer but a man and one she had possibly know before. She pondered why she didn't remember who he was and if she'd do the same to Wright. Later that night while talking to Wright Renee remembers that she was an experiment which explains her brown skin and she begins to search for more information about who she is. Renee and wright start to make plans to go see the ruins, Renee believes that it will lead here to more memories of who she was. The night before Renee visits Theodora once again but this time she takes more blood than the last time. the two of them start a little chat and Renee finds out that Theodora is a librarian. The next night Wright and Renee head towards the woods where they met so that they can search for the ruins. Renee notices two more abilities while she searches which are to see better at night and her increased speed. They eventually find the burned down cabin and Renee said she smells the scent of a another like her that is a male. She chases after his sent and sees a copter taking off.As she walks back she notices a man, this man carried a riffle and was walking towards Wright. Renee rushes to saved Wright and knocks the gun man down and drink his blood leaving him unconscious. Renee received a shot from man in her leg and so during this time she tell Wright to make her a shelter and to come back on Sunday night to pick her up. He doesn't want to leave her there but she is afraid that she will hurt him like she hurt the other man the last time she was injured. So the next morning Renee awakes and finds the place where man who shot her was. She sneaks in and drinks his blood to put him under her hypnosis, and she finds out his name is Raleigh Curtis. As she questions him she realizes that he is leaving out information, then comes to the conclusion that the male like her bite him and told him to protect the ruins from anyone who went near it. Then she told him to set up a meeting with her and the other male like her and later returns to the ruins to meet Wright.

Chapter 7-15
Wright and Renee return to the ruins to meet the other Person the Renee believes is the male version of whatever she is. When she meets this person she finds out that he is her father Losif Petrescu. At first she is skeptical of him but as they talk she begins to feel more comfortable with him. He tells her that her name is Shori and that she had been living with the women and young men in this house separate from the grown males. He tells her that she is an Ina that live alongside human in a symbiotic relationship. He had been searching for any survivors and one had been the man she killed when she first woke up in the cave. He then Losif then invites both Shori and Wright to his community so she can learn about who and what she is. Shori, wright, and Losif arrive at the community that Losif lives in. When they get inside they see three symbionts that belong to Losif, they seem to know shori but she doesn't remember them. As she walks and looks around nothing seems familiar even though she has been there before. Losif leaves Wright with his symbionts to answer any questions he has and explain to him how his life with Shori will be. Then shori meets her brother Stefan, the three of them talk about the ruins and couldn't understand who did it or why. Eventually Shori no longer wanted to stay in the presences of her father and brother, Losif later explains that this is because of her not immature body didn't agree with the presence of and adult male Ina body. She ask to leave and even though her father and brother would rather her live there they allow her to leave with wright. As Shori and Wright are driving back she realizes that there is something bothering him. As they talk he explains to her that he is upset about the fact that she will have symbionts other than him and that he will have to live alongside them, not only that but she with have a mate that isn't him. They later resolve the quarrel and Shori goes to see Theodra, she goes there to learn about her and tell her about herself as well. Then after that she invites Theodora to come live with her and she agrees. Shori and Wright wait to be taken to Losif's house but after waiting for a while he doesn't showup. So they decide to go and search for Losif's house which is very difficult because they don't know how to get there and the map they have doesn't show his house either. Shori then decides to run and find the place where her father lives and ask Wright to wait for her southward of where they are now and that if anything she will meet him back at his cabin. She runs through the forest searching for her father or brothers scent but instead what she smells is the remnants of a fire. Losif and Stefan's houses were burned down. Shori searches around to try and figure out what happened and eventually Brook and Celia show up. Celia seems to think that this is Shori fault but cannot act on the idea of hurting her because Shori is stronger. The three of them find Stefans remains and believe that there was shooting involved during the altercation. Afterward Shori tells Brook and Celia to come with her as they mention that there is another guest house somewhere else where other symbionts could be. As daylight comes the Shori, Wright, Celia, and Brook arrive at Losif's other house and they begin to talk. Shori tells them that even though none of them might not want to be part of the same family they would now have to or Brook and Celia would die. Not knowing anything about how the process worked Shori asked Brook and Celia about how to go about it. Celia seemed very outraged and wasn't too keen on the idea of becoming someone else's symbiont. Shori visits both Celia and Brook to drink their blood but ends up not enjoying it just as both the women do. She then returns to Wright ad begins to feel comfort in him but that doesn't last for long because the next smell she gets is that of gasoline. Shori goes to examine where the smell of the gasoline is coming from. As she peeks out she see a bunch of humans trying to silently spread the gasoline around the house. She see a chance to kill one of them out and she does clearing that area of the gasoline. Then she takes his gun and throws it back into the house, after which the men throw something into several different windows and setting the inside of the house on fire while also lighting the gasoline on the outside. Wright, Brook and Celia head out the house to escape the fire and prepare to fight the men who are burning the house. After a gun fight everyone starts to hear gun fire and scatters to escape the scene as not to be associated with the incident. Shori's group later travels and make plan to go on the road to find somewhere to stay that they will be safe. Shori's group has been travleing fora couple day taking rest on the road trying to peace together what has happened and what they need to do next. They begin to wonder if her father has any relatives alive that they may find refuge with, but Brook says that she doesn't know of any they are all dead. Then she remembered a family that once wanted to mate with Losif's daughters called the Gordons and they begin making plans to head there and see if they can help them with the assassins chasing them down. Shori's group arrives at back at Wright's cabin to get some resources together in order to sustain themselves on the ride to Daniel Gordon's house. At first Brook doesn't remember the way but eventually after they drive around she remembers the road. When they arrive they are greeted by symbionts holding guns as if they feel threatened by their arrival. Shori then meets Daniel and even though she doesn't remember him he remembers her, he invites her and her sybionts in to meet with his father and brothers so they can discuss what has been happening. She meets with them and they stare down Wright, Brook, and Celia to scare them but stop when shori tells them it bothers her. They talk about the incidents and share information with each other to see if they can find anything out about the people burning all of her families houses. After a while they agree that shori and her family should stay and wait till the assassins are found and dealt with. Later shori is introduced to a man named Joel by Preston, he says that he had been to be her sybiont for a long time. Joel had a degree in business administration so he would be very useful to Shori when it came to handling finances. When she told Wright that a new male was joining the family he wasn't too pleased,  but she told him that even though they might not like each other they would have to accept each other.

Chapter 16-21
The next morning the attackers arrive, Shori hears their vehicle and smells the gasoline on then before their cars come into view. She calls the other symbionts and tells then to get ready for an attack, and to only shoot if they see gasoline or guns, in case it's someone innocent. As the men walk out of the cars Shori sees them carrying gasoline and gun then tells the other symbionts to begin shooting. After they thwart the attack Shori sees one of the attackers trying to escape and knocks him unconscious then bites him so that when he comes to he'll be cooperative. When he wakes up she questions him while they walk toward the others and find out there are 18 men and total and tells Wright to makes sure they are all a counted for. They then return to where Shori's family is staying and she question the attacker named Victor along with Celia and Brook. She then realized that the attackers were sent by another Ina. Shori lays in bed with Brook trying to get some rest after staying in the sun for so long. Then she hears a voice call her, which turns out to be Daniel from the other house telling her to bring Victor so that they can question him. They find out that there were 23 men at first, that were gathered in LA to attack Shori's family. Then after a little more questions they find out that the family sending these men were the Silks. The Gordons begin prepping to questioning the other men they captured as Shori ask for history books on Ina so she can learn more about herself. Shori gets some books from Hayden about their history and realizes that she can read the Ina language. Hayden tells her about the epidemic that once befell on the Ina and humans until they adapted. The next day the other two prisoners are questioned and with their similarity of Origin the Gordons now have the proof to say that it was infact the Silks who attacked Shori's family. Talk begins about bringing together a council of seven of the families to discuss what should be done. During their discussion daniel reveals to Shori that her bite can kill male Ina, and females as well. The Gordons call the Silks on the phone to discuss everything that had been going on the past couple days and to tell them the evidence they had against them. The two Silk family members they talked to were Milo and Russell, their was some dispute about who would be in the seven councils that was soon to come. After a while they settled and everyone started to prepare for the arrival of all the Ina and symbionts that would be staying for the next couple of days. Theodora arrives and Shori shows her where they shall be staying and what has been happening before she arrived. Afterward Shori talk with Matin (Joel father) as they walk around preparing, and Martin tell her about Wright and Joel struggling with living together. The other families begin to arrive the first being the Leontyev's who were the males to Shori's mother's family. They talk with each other for a while as she explain that she cannot remember her past. She was hoping to see one of her female relatives but they would not arrive until later. The two female Ina were Joan and Margaret, when they arrived Shori finally had a chance to see and talk to female Ina. Shori shows Margaret and her symbionts around as her and Shori talk. Shori and Daniel walk towards his room to talk after she shows Margaret where she will be staying. Her and Daniel return to his room where the two embrace each other, but Shori tries not to go too far because making him hers would cause many problems. She is not sure if she will be safe after the council meeting yet so she doesn't want to do anything permanently stopping Daniel from living with other Ina females. He tries to explain to her what will happen during the council meeting and informs her on how to answer in case someone tries to take advantage of her during the council meeting.

Chapter 22-Epilogue
The day for the council meeting has finally arrived, the Ina who sit at the council meeting are Preston Gordon, Zoe Fotopoulos, Alexander Svoboda, Peter Marcu, Vladimir Leontyev, Ana Morariu, Katherine Dahlman, Alice Rappaport, Harold Westfall, Kira Nicolau, Ion Andrei, Walter Nagy, Elizabeth Akhmatova, and Milo Silk. It was soon decided the advocate for Shori was her mothers father, Vladimir Leontyev and for Milo Katherine Dahlman was his. Shori started off by explaining her story to the council. THen when Milo began to question her and insinuated that she was not Ina, she answered back in a way that put him in a rage. After a fifteen minute break Russell Silk took the place asspeaker of his family.As the council meeting continued Shori had members of the Silk family approach in order to question them and after one of her questions Katherine had asked Shori if she remembered who her dead family were. Shori answered saying she didn't and that it angered her that she can't know who they were. Later it was Russell's turn to ask questions, he had called up Daniel and asked if the only reason he was here was because he was bonded to Shori. It was soon concluded that he wasn't which left a surprising look to Russell's face, it seems as though he had somehow kept an eye on Shori and Daniel to know what had happened between them to some extent. the council meeting had ended for the day, Shori went to lay and feed from Celia. Later Martin arrived with new as two of the Gordon's symbiont brought Wright an Brook to hear the news as well. Someone had killed Theodora. Shori arrived at Theodora's dead body and began to cry out in a way that she had ever heard before. At the sne time she was smelling Theodora trying to find out who's scent was on her who could have done this to her. She found a couple scents bt had to stop eventually because the smell of dead blood was starting to make her sick. She asked her symbionts to ask other symbionts who's scent she caught about what they knew about what happened and also went to find out as well. Eventually Shori found a lead on who might have killed Theodora, Jack roan, Katherine Dahlman's Symbiont. Shori waited for Preston to awaken to tell him all she knew about what happened to Theodora and said that she wanted blood for what had happened. Preston told her that even though she may want blood she should not take it because of the consequences that would follow. After they talked for a while longer he sent her off to Joan. They talked and she told Shori that she should be prepared for tonight because they will ask her questions about Theodora that would hurt and anger Shori in a way that would make her seem unfit to be before the council. When the council meeting began again the first order of business was revealing to the rest of the council what had happened to Theodora, after hearing the evidence most of them agreed that Katherine should be removed from the council. After this was done one of the silk symbionts question Shori about her condition after she woke up. At frst he felt above her with his questions but eventually she grew tired of what he was trying to do and answered in a way that made him look down himself. Then It was Shori's turn to ask questions and she called up one of the younger silk boys Alan, She asked him about the gathering of the humans and what he thought about the way humans were used. By the time she was done questioning him Alan was too confused to know what to say. After the second council meeting Shori went for a run and eventually returned to the guest house to shower and take comfort in her Ina. She later spoke with Margaret Who said Shori might not like the decsion that would be made. In Shori's thoughts she wanted the silks dead but not as much as she wanted Katherine dead who had only thought of a thing to be used to hurt Shori. Ont he final night of the council Russell made a final attempt to justify what had happened basically confessing that his family did the crime. The council then voted and a majority of the council stood with Shori against the Silk and Katherine. At that time the punishments were being given out, The silk family would have their un-mated sons taken from them and adopted into other families and be silks no longer. When the council asked if he accepted Russell at first jumped toward Shori but hi family held him back and eventually he gave in and said he accepted the consequences. Then the council called up Katherine and told her that her punishment would be having her legs cut off. She did not accept this and argued that she should have a less painful punishment. After arguing Preston said that she knew what would happen if she broke the law and said to talk to her family Ina and symbionts and think about her response. Later as Shori and her Symbionts were talking back at the guest house confusion and shouting began as people ran out of Henry's house. Shori then saw Katherine running toward her and her symbionts, pointing a rifle at them. Shori leaped at her and received a shot from her. She landed on top of her and they started to struggle, eventually Shori had her teeth around Katherine's next and ripped out her throat. Shori had been passed out for a couple of days, she had awoken with a hunger, not as great as the one she had when she was in a cave but still hunger. She smelled meat and immediately went for it, it was right he had called out her name and told her to stop. She was afraid of what she might do to him so she backed away, he then started feeding ehr trays of meat to help with her hunger. When she was done eating he told her that Katherine had been killed because she would rather die that accept the punishment. Also Margaret had left a note with her adress and a message saying she wouldn't mind becoming Shori's teacher. Wright asked her what she would do, and Shori said she'd go to learn from her.

My impression of Octavia Butler
13 March 2015

Octavia Butler was an African American writer who lived from 1947 – 2006. She wrote science fiction all her life, the reason for this being that most of the books that she read as a child were based off of myths and fantasies. Her stories are about power, power fantasy, race, gender, love, longevity/immorality, apocalypse, hubris, addiction, genetics, medicine, aliens, family, motherhood, childhood, disease, incest, rape, slavery, education, ecology, social engineering, pain, ordeal, memory, mystery, and myth. Some people didn’t see the characters in here stories as good people but in her opinion she does not write stories about heroes. Octavia’s love of writing stems from her mother who would always bring her books so that she could read. She was a very shy person which made it hard for her to really talk to people, and just like many black people living as a teen in the 1950 didn’t really make it any easier for her to talk about her writing. At one point her aunt had told her that she should give up on wanting to be a writer because during their time there was no such thing as a colored writer. When she was 10 years old she begged her mother to give her a typewriter so that she could start making her own stories to publish. At first when she tried she got rejected but eventually she was successful. When she was an eighteen year old in college she had won first prize in a competition that was meant for older more experienced people and she sold her wo stories at the age of 23. Positive obssession Science fiction writers

Citation Practice
Encyclopedia of science fiction Birth of a Writer