Octavia E. Butler was the primary reason I applied to Clarion West in 2005.  I was accepted, and thanks to a wonderful community of friends, family and supporters raised enough money to attend the workshop. The workshop changed my life. I had the privilege of experiencing the MacArthur foundation recipient and award-winning writer as a giving teacher and a wonderful human being.  Sadly, ours would be the last Clarion West class that benefited first-hand from her prodigious skill.  Ms. Butler passed away in February 2006.

In her honor, the Octavia E. Butler Scholarship was created by the Carl Brandon Society to  help two students of color accepted to the Clarion and Clarion West writers’ workshops cover the cost of attendance. Since 2007, the scholarship has made it possible for eleven students to attend the workshops.

This year, the society and writer/editor Nisi Shawl put together an anthology of work written by past scholarship recipients as a fundraiser for the scholarship:

Copy taken from the book sale site:

Give a little, get a free ebook.

If you contribute a mere $8.01 to the scholarship fund, you can download Bloodchildren: Stories by the Octavia E. Butler Scholars, an ebook anthology of science fiction and fantasy stories by these students — the voices of the new generation of writers of color in speculative fiction.

Edited by Nisi Shawl, Bloodchildren includes an introduction by Nalo Hopkinson and a memoir byVonda N. McIntyre of her friendship with Octavia Butler, which began when they were students together at the Clarion Workshop in 1970.

The collection includes ground-breaking stories by Indrapramit Das, Shweta Narayan, Caren Gussoff, Rochita Loenen-Ruiz, Lisa Bolekaja, Chris Caldwell, Jeremy Sim, Erik Owomoyela, Dennis Y. Ginoza, Mary Burroughs, and Kai Ashante Wilson.

Donate now!

This special ebook is available only until June 22, 2013, Octavia’s birthday. She would have been sixty-six this year.

Octavia taught at Clarion and Clarion West, and provided enormous support there — and elsewhere — to other writers of color. Through these scholarships, she continues to do so.

Help continue Octavia’s work.

Please support the scholarship program right now with a modest $8.01 donation, and then download your gift: this original anthology celebrating an international coterie of writers who are truly the children and inheritors of Octavia Butler.

Contents of Bloodchildren: Stories by the Octavia E. Butler Scholars, edited by Nisi Shawl

Introduction by Nalo Hopkinson

Before Conception
“Speech Sounds” by Octavia E. Butler
“Octavia Estelle Butler” by Vonda N. McIntyre

2007
“My Love Will Never Die” by Christopher Caldwell
“Falling into the Earth” by Shweta Narayan

2008
“Free Bird” by Caren Gussoff
“Impulse” by Mary Burroughs

2009
“Dancing in the Shadow of the Once” by Rochita Loenen-Ruiz

2010
“Légendaire.” by Kai Ashante Wilson
“Steal the Sky” by Erik Owomoyela

2011
“/sit” by Jeremy Sim
“Re: Christmas, Bainbridge Island” by Dennis Y. Ginoza

2012
“The Runner of n-Vamana” by Indrapramit Das
“The Salt Water African” by Lisa Bolekaja