The fiction of Octavia E. Butler has fired the imaginations of academics and activists alike. Quite often, however, these communities are walled off from one another. Butler’s explorations of the environment, sexuality, race, politics, and many other topics have established her legacy as a revolutionary, and her influence cannot be contained by the traditional categories and boundaries in which knowledge is typically organized. Her work is too vital to be put into any kind of box. For our second biennial conference, the Octavia E. Butler Literary Society invites scholars, organizers, activists, and educators to come together at Spelman College in Atlanta Georgia from February 23-25, 2018 to share their insights on the works of one of the most important writers of our time. We encourage scholarly proposals but also call for workshops, pedagogical discussions, roundtables, and other presentations.
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Topics might include but are not limited to:

• Climate change
• Community organizing
• Ecocriticism
• Education
• Fascism
• Gender
• Race
• Religion
• Sexuality
• Teaching Butler

Please submit proposals to [email protected] by Monday, October 2, 2017, and include “OEB Conference” in the subject line.

Approaches to Teaching the Works of Octavia Butler Matthew Mullins, Assistant Professor of English and the History of Ideas at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, discusses Butler’s concept of the future as bound to the past. He posits that Butler’s work represents a key contribution to the history of American literature by making her readers aware of two central conflicts that plague African American literature: the need to recreate a systematically obliterated history and simultaneously imagine a possible future. Mullins’s essay focuses on practical strategies for helping students become aware of the historical expectations they bring to African American literature and for helping instructors situate the results of a student designed in-class activity exploring the narrative structure of Kindred in an American fiction class. Butler’s fiction spurs serious consideration of the relationship between past and future and challenges a variety of assumptions about how history works and how it is represented.


Assistant Professor of English at SUNY, Albany Sami Schalk’s work contends that rather than being merely a medical concern, disability is a phenomenon socially constructed by the physical and attitudinal environments which can vary by time and place. Often instructors approach the concept of disability with examples about the architectural environment. While this explanation helps students understand how physical structures limit the abilities of certain people, it does little to explain how disability is socially constructed in terms of the attitudinal social environment. In Schalk’s essay “Teaching the Social Construction of Disability through the Parable series, Lilith’s Brood, and Seed to Harvest,” she demonstrates how Octavia E. Butler creates worlds in which the expectations and possibilities for bodyminds are different from the world we inhabit. She discusses how disability is socially constructed in Butler’s Parable series, Lilith’s Brood, and Seed to Harvest. By discussing how Butler’s worlds contain not only different kinds of bodyminds, but also different valuations and expectations of bodyminds, instructors can help students develop a more nuanced and complex understanding of the social construction of disability in order to identify and deconstruct it in their own real world(s).


In “Teaching Afrofuturistic Thought Leadership in Octavia E. Butler’s Fiction,” Tarshia Stanley, Associate Professor of English at Spelman College, discusses the strategies used to introduce students to the topics of speculative fiction, Black speculative fiction, and Afrofuturism. The Black female protagonists in Wild Seed (1980), Mind of My Mind (1977) and Survivor (1978) were the primary means of exploring Butler’s practice of Afrofuturism and denoting how such an observation might serve those in search of progressive models of leadership that extend across family, community, and culture. She writes that this kind of discussion is particularly pressing for students whose motto requires a commitment to being leaders and change agents, but does not necessarily address the real-world challenges of doing so in uniquely female bodies and for communities in deep and systemic crisis. Mary, Anyanwu, and Alanna are mothers, daughters, lovers, and warriors as well as leaders. Afrofuturism provides a lens through which to think of those positions as complementary rather than oppositional. The course content and format allowed experimentation with multi-modal writing by including assignments which were presented as humanities poster presentations, critical and creative essays, and free-writing responses formulated for the Octavia E. Butler Literary Society blog.

The Octavia E. Butler Literary Society mourns the passing of our vice president, founding member, colleague, and friend, Conseula Francis. Conseula was an energetic and hospitable person whose work on Butler shaped her own life and the lives of those she touched. Without her, we would not have one of the most significant volumes of Butler scholarship, Conversations with Octavia E. Butler (2009). Conseula’s hard work gives us all the opportunity to read Butler’s thoughts on writing, history, race, class, and other important themes in her own words. Above all else, Conseula was a warm and generous person, someone who cared deeply about others and who was always willing to give of her time and of herself. She is remembered by her colleagues at the College of Charleston in this story from Monday, May 9, 2016.

​Coming from a low income single parent household, I had to overcome many difficulties that made me independent and grow as a person. Because of our financial situation, we often moved homes which helped me adapt to new surroundings as I became older. When I entered high school I had a goal of maintaining a 4.0 GPA, but when I became homeless during sophomore year I earned many "B's" instead of "A's". Despite being a minority and first in my family to go to college, I am striving towards a higher education to better my life and the life of  my family.

I am apart of the Engineering and Environmental Science Academy at John Muir High School which has exposed me to the field of engineering and various opportunities that are preparing me for college. Because of these opportunities, I was able to take a college freshman engineering course, with a full scholarship, from Johns Hopkins University. Engineering Innovation made me realize my passion for engineering and helping. I plan to purse a PhD in mechanical engineering. Another goal I accomplished was to get an internship. I interned at Muir Ranch, a two-acre organic farm, for three years. This allowed me to gain customer service skills and exposed me to laborious work that pushed me to dream for a better life through education.

In my quest for higher education, I looked towards those whose footsteps I now walk in for inspiration--John Muir alumni. I came across the Octavia E. Butler Society essay contest and felt that I identified with Octavia Butler's experiences as an adolescent, so I entered. Octavia E. Butler gave me inspiration and is a true inspiration for young girls like me.

Yendrick Porras

In honor of the 50th High School graduation of the late writer Octavia E. Butler, the Octavia E. Butler Literary Society and the John Muir class of 1965 are sponsoring an essay competition for current John Muir students in grades 9-12. The first place winner of the competition will receive $100 and the second place winner will receive $50. The essays must discuss one of Butler’s short stories in the collection Bloodchild and Other Stories

​The OEB Literary Society sponsored the panel Theorizing the Novels of Octavia Butler at the 3rd Annual meeting of the Octavia E. Butler Literary Society at the American Literature Association in Boston May 21-24. The society thanks Vice President Consuela Francis for organizing the panel.

The OEB Literary Society sponsored the panel Theorizing the Novels of Octavia Butler at the 3rd Annual meeting of the Octavia E. Butler Literary Society at the American Literature Association in Boston May 21-24. The society thanks Vice President Consuela Francis for organizing the panel.

The panel was well attended and the subsequent discussion engaging.

• "Wild Seeds: Improving the Human in African American Letters," Phoenix Alexander, Yale University
• "Reanimating the Dead and Artificial Childhood in Fledgling," Habiba Ibrahim, University of Washington
• "'Rigging the Game': Anti-determinism and the Brain in Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower," Audrey Farley, University of Maryland

by Bianca Spriggs
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“After a few years of watching the human species make things unnecessarily difficult for itself I have little hope that it will do anything more than survive and continue its cycle of errors,” writes Octavia E. Butler in the afterword of “Childfinder,” the second of two narratives in Unexpected Stories by Octavia E. Butler, an eBook published posthumously by Open Road Media. Octavia Butler’s untimely death in 2006 proved a substantial loss for contemporary literature. Having published science fiction since the 1970’s, Butler was, for decades, considered to be the lone ambassador for Black American women in the genre. A recipient of the highest honors a SF author can receive— including Nebula and Hugo awards as well as a PEN American lifetime achievement award and a McArthur “Genius” Grant—Butler’s catalogue embraces a spectrum of subject matter including race relations, feminism, trans-humanism, and queer theory. An anomaly in that Butler transcended the confines of her genre to earn respect in both popular and scholarly circles, Butler’s work is increasingly lauded as an example of sterling postcolonial and feminist Black American literature alongside other canon darlings, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, and speculative fiction foremother, Zora Neale Hurston.
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Over the course of her career, Butler published thirteen titles. The last of which, entitled Fledgling, was published in 2005. Having been without new work by Butler for almost ten years, reading unpublished stories by this singular author is a thrilling prospect and feels right on time. Unexpected Stories read like two lonely satellites now orbiting Butler’s other works, valuable by contributing to our further understanding of her complex and abundant imagination. Although these two narratives were originally launched earlier in her career and we read them now out of chronological order, it’s still our Octavia. More of her unmistakable prose, memorable characters, and distinctive plots have returned to us across time and space bringing some closure to the rift left by her passing.

Paradoxically, the most consistent threads in all of Butler’s works have little to do with finding closure and more to do with the cyclical nature of community, transition and transformation, and always, always—risk. “A Necessary Being” (a novella dating back to 1972) operates as a prequel to her novel, Survivor, which Butler famously regretted publishing. In this novella, we are introduced to the Kohn; bipedal, fur-covered, inhumanly strong humanoids that function within a strict class system denoted by the blueness of their fur. Much like the muscle-triggered chromatophores in squid, the Kohn can camouflage themselves into their surroundings and their coloration reflects their mood. The bluest of the Kohn are rare and born rulers called Hao who preside over tribes of the Kohn dwelling in various city ruins.

The novella opens with a middle-aged Hao of the Rohkohn tribe, Tahneh, who is nearing the time where it will almost be too late for her to find a mate and produce offspring to continue her line. Her hunters happen to spot and capture a young Hao named Diut and his companions from a rival tribe, the Tehkohn, as they are exploring near the ruins of the Rohkohn. Diut is brought into the city to meet the Rohkohn Hao and helplessly finds himself as attracted to her as she is to him. Unfortunately, Diut (being of a rival tribe) risks being maimed and made to remain a prisoner of the Rohkohn for the rest of his life. What surrounds Tahneh and Diut’s brief courtship is a flurry of personal sacrifice amid remorseless political maneuvering to find a solution that resolves both Haos’ needs to provide safety and sanctuary for their peoples.

Compared to her later writing, the novella is, as Walter Mosley states in the foreword, “like looking at a photograph of a child whom you only knew as an adult.” To be fair, this is an earlier work and the prequel to a novel Butler wished she hadn’t published, so it is no surprise that the plot feels somewhat unrealized and the pace lags in places. Descriptions of the Kohn and the ruined city, however, are lush. And the characters of Tahneh and Diut are sharply rendered but their interactions with one another and other characters come off as occasionally cumbersome. This novella longs to be a novel, maybe more than one, and Butler admits in the preface for Bloodchild and Other Stories she hates short story writing and prefers more time and space to flesh out a story because the ideas that interest her “tend to be big.”

Moving immediately at an intense clip, “Childfinder” revolves around a Black woman named Barbara who possesses psionic abilities as well as the skill to locate untrained children with similar traits. Having broken ties with an essentially racist parent organization, Barbara has begun teaching carefully selected kids from the ‘hood to defend themselves against the organization’s controlling initiatives. When a representative, Eve, finally shows up at Barbara’s door to threaten her to return to the fold, both women abruptly find out more than either could have possibly foreseen coming from Barbara’s regiment of recently trained psychic children, leaving her with only one drastic choice to ensure their continued safety.

“Childfinder” as a standalone story feels truer to the pace and character interaction we are used to seeing from Butler. In the streamlined prose of Barbara’s inner monologue, we learn much about the dynamism of her character as well as her fierce commitment to her mission and her kids. We don’t see much backstory, but then, one of Butler’s finest qualities as a writer is to unapologetically plunk her reader amidst a near-crisis without us feeling cheated. We are given just enough room to work out the exposition in real-time as the characters make choices and react to subsequent consequences.

Choice and consequence are another way to say trial and error. Again, what is most clear about these stories is the obsession Butler has with playing out parabolic scenarios where humans or human-like characters are forced to take risks and either learn from them or sometimes literally die or cause someone else to die trying. Furthermore, it’s never just one life at stake. Often it is the fate of an entire community, struggling to survive amidst incomprehensible odds, that rests most heavily upon the consciences of her protagonists. The compromises that ensue are never easy or comfortable or even entirely satisfactory for Butler’s characters, but they may ensure survival, and survival is paramount to all else in her narratives. What Butler understood and what I believe she sought to help her audience understand through the subtext of “learn and run” threaded throughout her stories—these two being no exception—is that Change is the nature of the universe. It’s up to us to either adapt or be replaced.

The Society Thanks This Reviewer!

This post is part of the "Read Out Loud" book review series. Another OEB Society Member reviews Butler's Unexpected Stories. 

Many reviewers and fans of Octavia E. Butler’s large body of work have described her novels and short stories as dealing with issues of power. It took me a long time to see what they meant. I saw it in Wild Seed, when Doro coerces Anyanwu into coming with him by threatening her children. It is harder to see the issues of power in Xenogenesis, the trilogy which introduced me to Butler’s work. Even though it is clear that the aliens seduce, coerce, and mislead the humans, Xenogenesis always strikes me as being, as Butler once said of “Bloodchild,” “basically a love story” (Bloodchild and Other Stories, 1995).  Of the two works recently released in Unexpected Stories, “A Necessary Being” could not be called a love story, though “Childfinder” could. These two early works by Butler foreshadow her later novels in truly unexpected ways. They not only clearly address aspects of wanted and unwanted power; they also present characters with uncertain motives, and their endings place them in the tradition of the American Romanticists, recalling some of Herman Melville’s and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s endings: ambiguous and bittersweet.

In “A Necessary Being,” Diut, who appears, older and wiser, in Survivor (1978), is an insecure young Hao, a rare blue-furred specimen of the alien Kohn. Diut is prized for his supposedly innate leadership ability, marked by his blue fur. To assume leadership of an entire tribe he needs only to do what everyone expects of him anyway: to be a leader. Diut, however, is not sure he deserves the title of Hao. Others recognize his inexperience as a potential liability. Tahneh, resident Hao and leader of a rival tribe, takes advantage of Diut’s inexperience. Diut acknowledges Tahneh’s ability to persuade and even enthrall him, albeit temporarily, because she is both blue and sure of her abilities. Tahneh challenges Diut even in moments of peace. The interplay between the two (the only two Hao alive, so far as they know) evokes the hierarchical tendencies that Butler briefly bemoans of the humans in Xenogenesis. Tahneh could be a mentor to Diut, but is just as easily a rival.

Those familiar with Wild Seed may see Diut and Tahneh as the counterparts of Anyanwu and Doro, respectively. Yet it is clear from the beginning that Doro is Wild Seed’s principal antagonist, whereas Tahneh’s motives are obscure. Tahneh seems at first to be protecting Diut. When she treats him with condescension, it seems like a betrayal of both Diut, and Tahneh’s character. “Childfinder” is much more like Butler’s later work, in that the characters’ personalities and goals are stable across the course of the narrative. What “A Necessary Being” and “Childfinder” each feature is an unsatisfying, even sad ending. The ambivalent conclusions are not necessarily bad; rather, they demonstrate an arc in which Butler moves from underscoring mostly negative points about human nature to discussing, somewhat more subtly and infinitely more elaborately, the ways in which power, attraction, and affection intersect.

Gerry Canavan says in his review of Unexpected Stories that, by 2004, Butler described herself in her author’s note as “usually hopeful.” The progression from rather pessimistic to “usually hopeful” is evident in Butler’s novels and short stories as well. Diut and Tahneh seem to have little hope that meaningful change will occur for them, despite their union – but their union does suggest a more affluent future for their tribes. In “Childfinder,” Barbara, a young black woman with psionic ability, gives up all but her life in order to protect the black children whose burgeoning psionic abilities she has nurtured. Butler’s later characters are much more likely to strike some sort of balance between love, sacrifice, and loss.

Reading Unexpected Stories allowed me to reflect across the body of Octavia E. Butler’s work in an unprecedented way. As Walter Mosley notes in the foreword, Unexpected Stories is a means for those who love Butler’s work to see her, and her work, anew.

​The Society Thanks This Reviewer!

by Alice Osborn

The world lost author Octavia E. Butler too soon in February 2006. My favorite author, I was just beginning to discover her thanks to my African-American literature class in grad school. Butler was only 58 and had many more years left to share her vision of afrofuturism, race, power and gender with her readers around the globe. Many of her books were housed in the sci-fi section of bookstores and libraries, not in the African-American or women's fiction sections, which definitely extended her popularity across gender and color lines. While themes of class, the ‘Other’, and racial/gender discrimination were prominent in all of her books, she never preached. Instead, Butler entertained with strong, memorable, characters and situations which rendered her books page-turners and best-sellers.
Now eight years after her death, Butler fans have been gifted with two previously unpublished short stories in the collection Unexpected Stories, penned before her fame. These stories both have strong female protagonists who must face a decisive turning point. Butler submitted her novella entitled “A Necessary Being” a few times before shelving it, while the shorter story “Childfinder” was sold to Harlan Ellison’s anthology, Last Dangerous Visions. It was never published.

“A Necessary Being,” moves right into world-building. One of the main characters, Tahneh, is having dinner in her apartment with her chief judge, who is also an ex-lover. Tahneh is a different species than the rest of her desert tribespeople. She is a powerful being called a Hao who glows blue and is said to bring peace and order to a community—the trouble is that her people need a successor and she is barren. Haos are forcefully brought into the communities they rule, and then physically handicapped to prevent their escape—this is what happened to Tahneh's father.

In one of the oldest plot points around, a stranger comes to town in the form of a young Hao, hailing from the mountain region. Diut (we get a great backstory on Diut for all of you Patternist series fans) is traveling with two high-born companions to run away from a choice he must make to ensure his people’s survival. He doesn’t want the war his people want and believes that his people won’t listen to his unpopular decision. Tahneh is thrilled to meet someone of her own kind again and hopes that he can be her successor, a role which involves pain and sacrifice. The two form a romantic union; she teaches him to believe in his power and leadership while he shows her his capacity for compassion and trust, all amidst a backdrop of her people wanting to maim him so he can belong to their tribe.

“A Necessary Being” could have used some editing to pick up the pacing—Butler went into far too much detail about how the Haos, judges, and chiefs flashed their different colors and the fight scenes at the end lacked a clear direction. I liked her point of view choice of getting into both Diut’s and Tahneh’s heads in third person, rather than going omniscient or first person. Her ending felt justified and not rushed.

In the much shorter story, “Childfinder,” we enter in medias res a modern world where Barbara the Childfinder is living in the black projects, escaping the Organization. The Organization uses telepathic people for their own ends and formerly employed Barbara to recruit kids. I loved the description of one of her mentees, named Valerie. “Ten years old, dirty, filthy, even at this hour of the morning. Which meant she had probably gone to bed that way. Her mother worked at night and her older sister knew better than to try to make her do anything she didn’t want to do. Like bathe.” Conflict ensues between the Organization and the kids who do great work getting Barbara out of her precarious situation. She knows she has to keep going, no matter the obstacles. This story ends far too soon and I wish Butler could have written at least another five pages.

These two stories are examples of Butler’s early work; she herself even noted that she preferred writing novels over short stories. While they have their flaws, they are undeniably glistening with Octavia E. Butler’s soul. I’m so glad she was a pack rat, so perhaps even more of her old stories can be found.

If you haven’t read any Octavia Butler yet, do yourself a favor and pick up her two most popular books, Kindred (1979) and Parable of the Sower (1993)—you’ll be wanting more soon enough. Click this link to Order the 82-page ebook, Unexpected Stories by Octavia E. Butler

​The Society Thanks This Reviewer!

The Community Watch and Comment show for August 13 at 11am featured Tananarive Due, Stephen Barnes and Tarshia Stanley talking about the life and legacy of Octavia Butler.

​http://www.wpfwfm.org/radio/programming/archived-shows