What the Octavia E. Butler Scholarship Meant to Me: Jeremy Sim

Hi. My name is Jeremy, and I never really knew Octavia Butler.

Seriously. Somehow, despite being a nerd of the highest caliber, I didn’t grow up reading any of Octavia Butler’s books or stories. I never had the pleasure of meeting her in person, and she passed away just two years after I had heard her name for the first time. I came to know about her only in abstract: I know she attended Clarion. I know that throughout her life she was a dear friend to the Clarion West community and many other writers in the Pacific Northwest. But not to me. At the time, I was still an outsider.

I used to be an lonely, stubborn, shy person. I say “used to”—but in many ways I still am. I came to writing like that: typing stories to myself in the dark, passively imitating writers I admired and stories I loved from afar. It felt good, like I was discovering a new world of my own. Maybe Octavia felt that way too, typing away on her Remington typewriter all those years ago. For me it was a kind of self-exile, I guess, taking myself out of the real world and losing myself in the pages and words of my own fiction. It was lonely, but at least it was satisfying. I didn’t realize it at the time, but all the while I was writing a thicker and thicker wall around myself. A wall no one could break through.

You want to know how all that changed? I got into Clarion West. I applied literally on a whim: I took the only story I had that was almost the correct length and sent it off without too much thought. When I got in, I had no idea what it meant. I was still an outsider, after all. Maybe I shouldn’t go to this Clarion West, I thought. It just didn’t seem like something that people like me did.

I remember clutching the phone to my ear on a scalding Los Angeles afternoon, with Neile Graham, the director of Clarion West, on the line. She said: “Jeremy, I want to tell you about the Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship.” I mumbled something along the lines of, “Oh, but that’s not for me, is it?” “It is,” she said. “And you’re welcome to apply for it, if you want. In fact, I’d encourage you to. I’m certain Octavia would want that too.”

I remember being distinctly surprised. It baffled me a little at the time, like my world had been flipped upside down. Someone wanted me? So with Octavia’s blessing still echoing in my ears, I went. I went to a writing workshop, and it changed everything.

To me, this scholarship was worth so much more than money. It was a rope, thrown over my wall where I could reach.

The most important thing I learned at Clarion West wasn’t how to write. It was this: that writing isn’t meant to be a lonely thing. Art is community. For the first time, I had writer friends. For the first time, I understood that it was about more than just me, that there were friends and allies and mentors and students and rivals and togetherness, not aloneness. And when I finally read Octavia Butler’s novels, Wild Seed and Clay’s Ark and the others, I realized she had known it all along. That community is everything. I saw the theme repeated over and over in her stories: the taking in of strangers and turning them into family. The acceptance of one’s self as a node in an infinite framework.

I don’t even know who to begin thanking for that. I never knew Octavia Butler, but now that I’ve read about her life, I’m starting to understand. I think of a shy girl whose Aunt Hazel once told her, “Honey, Negroes can’t be writers,” but who grew into a fearless warrior who broke through the walled gardens and worked to pull together the disparate strands of the writing world into a cohesive, inclusive whole.

She did so much to bring the marginalized into the spotlight, making herself an example to women and people of color who yearned to write great stories, but thought, “Oh, but that’s not for me, is it?” She stands proudly among the greatest of our writers, weaving herself into the tapestry and extending a hand out to others who would join her.

I’m still taking shaky steps up from the platform Octavia built for me. But I haven’t forgotten what she stood for, and what we all have to keep standing for. And one day, I’ll extend the end of the rope to someone else. Someone who’s on the outside, looking for a way in, but only knows how to sit alone and wall themselves off. I’ll tell them: “Here, this is for you.” And I’ll tell them that I came as far as I did because a long long time ago, way back in the twentieth century, there was a girl named Octavia Butler who started out on the outside, all alone, but broke through.

Adapted from my essay “Dear Octavia,” first appearing in Luminescent Threads: Connections to Octavia E. Butler, ed. Alexandra Pierce and Mimi Mondal (2017).

Dear Friends of Carl Brandon

More than ever, the space and freedom to critique the past, re-envision the present, and dream of many futures is an act of resistance. Thank you for helping us amplify the work and experiences of creators and fans of color—that has been our focus since our inception.

As the year draws to a close, we ask the community to continue to support the work of the Carl Brandon Society. Your donations make possible our major programs, which include the Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship for writers of color attending the Clarion and Clarion West writing workshops and an upcoming relaunch of our awards.

To date, CBS has funded 25 scholarships for students of color attending the Clarion and Clarion West workshops, presented 6 Kindred and 7 Parallax literary awards, and provided 19 years of representation and strategizing for People of Color involved in our field. All with the help of generous donors like you.

The Carl Brandon Society is a 501(c)3 organization, so your donation is tax-deductible in the U.S. We’ve received challenge pledges totaling $1,500 towards matching donations. If you’d like to issue a challenge grant, please let us know.

Throughout December, we’ll be posting essays by Butler scholars who will share what the scholarship has meant to them.

Thank you for your support of inclusive speculative fiction. Thank you for coloring all the worlds with us.

The Carl Brandon Society Steering Committee
Candra K. Gill, Victor J. Raymond, Kate Schaefer, Nisi Shawl, Lisa Bolekaja, K. Tempest Bradford, Annique Lennon

Mail donations to:
The Carl Brandon Society
PO Box 23336
Seattle, WA 98102
or donate via PayPal:




Be Our New Treasurer

We are looking for a new treasurer.  We’re hoping to get them on board this fall; read on to learn more about the job.

The Carl Brandon Society’s mission is to increase racial and ethnic diversity in the production of and audience for speculative fiction.

The Society administers several awards, scholarships, and travel assistance funds. Its largest annual program is the Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship, which enables writers of color to attend one of the Clarion writing workshops, where Octavia got her start. More than twenty writers of color have attended Clarion or Clarion West as Butler scholars since the scholarship was established in 2007.

The Carl Brandon Society has no paid employees; treasurer is a volunteer steering committee position. The budget is about $20,000 annually. Ideally, the treasurer would live in the Seattle area, since that’s where CBS’s post office box and bank are located, but a well-organized person in another location could make this work.

Treasurer’s duties:

  • create simple annual budget for steering committee approval
  • keep a general ledger
  • make bank deposits, including from PayPal, and write checks
  • send thank-you letters or emails to donors
  • file annual tax report (form 990 e-postcard for nonprofits with annual budget under $50,000) to IRS
  • report on Society’s financial position monthly, with formal treasurer’s report to annual meeting each May
  • with other board members, participate in fundraising activities

Regular treasurer’s bookkeeping duties generally take 3-5 hours per month. In addition, the treasurer attends monthly online steering committee meetings, which usually last about one-to-two hours.

Interested candidates should send email to treasurer@carlbrandon.org

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