For Make Believers — Sharing Space with Octavia

By Monice Mitchell Simms

I love Octavia Butler. Next to my all time favorite African-American female writer, Zora Neale Hurston, she runs a close second.

That's why I was so over-the-moon happy when I recently visited Zahra's Books-N-Things with my friend and mentor, writer and award-winning Cleveland PlainDealer reporter, Margaret Bernstein, so she could purchase my debut novel, Address: House of Corrections.

I gotta admit, I was a little nervous when Margaret wanted me to go with her to...