My biggest issue with this book was teh ARC formatting. It was very very hard to read and understand. The fact I kept with it and did not DNF is a testament to Butler. There is nothing new or analytic about this book, but it is a collection of some of the hardest to find things taht Butler said. i find myself revisiting her work, her life, and her perspective a lot, so having a way to hear her talk about the world and her writing herself was really special. I found her writing around the time of her death and always felt like I found her just too late, since I never got to see her speak. But this book gave me just a little bit of that, and I'm glad I asked to review it!

For future ARCs, though, please look into a better way to format. If this was any other format of book, I never would have made it. I'll have to come back and add my Goodreads and StoryGraph reviews when I am able to get to those,but didn't want to delay feeback.

As the title suggests, this is a book about not only the final interview that Octavia Butler, the legendary science fiction/fantasy/and horror icon gave before passing away in 2006. It also contains other rare interviews that are difficult to track down and that can’t easily come up in a Google search. The kind of interviews that are so essential to preserve because even though one of them, for instance, appeared in an April 2002 issue of Interzone, you would have to see if the press still published a copy for sale or if they listed an electronic copy for sale to borrow to be able to read this particular interview. Or you might have to see if a public library system where the reader is a member, or has access if it’s for specialized libraries, like academic institutions, offered a subscription to the vendor that makes Interzone available. Digital media gets scrubbed from the web very often. And even with archiving tools and archive.org that try to protect these things from disappearing, digital preservation is vast, complex, and something that should not be left up to multi-million and billion-dollar corporations.

The same goes for the more difficult-to-find interview in The Indypendent from January 13, 2006 in which Octavia Butler spoke to Kazembe Balagun.

At a time when so many have reflected more critically on the loss of Butler, and on her prescient wisdom about what has happened to our world — she was predicting it with a science fiction writer’s ability to warn, and to say “If we let things get this bad, they will absolutely deteriorate.” And because she was a Black woman, and Black women have warned — and continue to warn — non-Black people not to be complacement or to allow negative and horrible things to continue, her words and warnings are especially precious as most of us try to navigate these troubling times.

Definitely well worth the read both for fans of Butler and writers who want more insights into her processes and views.

Octavia Butler was brilliant, and these are a few really insightful interviews. Learned a lot about her and her process. I do think the arc formatting was borderline unreadable, but I assume this will not be the case when it's released. Definitely recommend for people who like Butler or who are even just interested in the writing process.

Octavia E. Butler: The Last Interview was such an illuminating read as someone who sought to learn more about the woman who wrote so many of my favorite fantasy titles. Ancestor Butler speaks about her experiences growing up with her mother as the only child and the many barriers she had to overcome to become the respected author she is in the present day. I enjoyed reading her perspectives on why she believed there were so few Black SciFi, Fantasy writers during her time and why so few were visible.

In these interviews, Ancestor Butler speaks in great detail about why she wrote the stories she did, her inspiration for these stories, and her perspectives on being a Black, woman writer who was interested in not just writing about the politics of power but in powerless people gaining power.

Both fans and novices of Octavia Butler will enjoy this journey into her inner life, inner thoughts, and storytelling journey through interviews. Thank you to the publisher for the e-arc!

Octavia E. Butler: The Last Interview and other Conversations
Compiled by Melville House Publishing

It’s exactly what it says it is, a compilation of interviews of Octavia Butler spanning many years.

It’s maybe a tad repetitive since interviewers often ask similar questions, but it is interesting to see how some of her answers changed nuance over the years. It’s also a really interesting look into her view of writing and science fiction as well as all of the meaty topics she tackled in her books. I’ve only read Kindred but this made me want to pick more of her books up. There are some spoilers in the interviews, but most are mild. She seems like she was a really astute and creative woman.

Thanks to @netgalley and @melvillehouse for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.