Science fiction author Nalo Hopkinson on finding herself in the genre

The worlds created by Homer, Kurt Vonnegut, and Michael Crichton were a refuge for young Nalo Hopkinson.

Nalo's mother worked as a library technician. As a child, Nalo would visit her mother at work and use her library card to discover what the shelves had to offer. She quickly read through all the titles in the children's section, so she started getting into the grown-up literature—which is where she picked up her first fantasy and sci-fi titles.

Nalo went on to become a science fiction writer herself, publishing such titles as Brown Girl in the Ring and The Salt Roads. She talked about the sense of community among science fiction authors and the unifying love for the genre.

"One of the things that science fiction and fantasy do is look at what it means to be human—like any literature, of course. It teaches you about [how] the world changes and how that affects both systems and people. So it really is a lot of looking at people as social beings," Nalo told Candy.

The author talked to Candy about the ways she's fighting to keep the genre of science fiction growing.