This image is the 2018 Google doodle created in honor of Butler's 71st birthday. Learn more: https://doodles.google/doodle/octavia-e-butlers-71st-birthday/
"...a pessimist if i'm not careful"
There is a long and documented tradition of writers of African descent who employ the speculative fiction genre, chief among them is Octavia E. Butler. In addition to being awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, Butler received multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards, and in 2000 received the lifetime achievement award from the PEN American Center. Her work is among the most studied and theorized of the speculative fiction genre and is important for its trailblazing capacity.
Octavia E. Butler was born on June 22, 1947 in Pasadena, California to Laurice and Octavia M. Butler. After the death of her father, her mother continued to work as a housekeeper and it was during her formative years that lessons in race based condescension began to form some of her earliest ideas about the world. Painfully shy throughout her childhood, self-conscious about both her height and her as-of-then undiagnosed dyslexia, this only child began writing at the early age of ten. When asked about the beginnings of her writing career, Butler is quoted as having been inversely inspired by the B science fiction film, Devil Girl From Mars, after which she was certain that she could write a better story. After graduating in 1965 from John Muir High School in Pasadena, Butler proceeded to work as she first pursued her Associate's Degree at Pasadena City College. Throughout this period, Butler began to take classes sponsored by the Writers Guild of America where the result was a body of work that produce her first published short story.
She continued with temporary work until Doubleday published her first novel, Patternmaster, in 1976. Patternmaster was quickly followed by the 1977 Mind of my Mind and the 1978 Survivor, all of these novels linked into the Patternist series which would continue with 1980’s Wild Seed and culminate in 1984’s Clay’s Ark. These five books are separated by the 1979 stand alone novel Kindred, Butler’s most famous work outside of the realm of science fiction. In life, Butler described herself as “comfortably asocial—a hermit living in a large city—a pessimist if I’m not careful; a student, endlessly curious; a feminist; an African American; a former Baptist; and an oil and water combination of ambition, laziness, insecurity, certainty, and drive.”
Butler’s work crosses a number of disciplines including Literature, Environmental Studies, Political Science, and even Bio-Medical Ethics. Yet, as important as her work has been for innovating academic disciplines, Butler’s literary legacy is just as important for the inspiration and enjoyment it provides to independent readers and writers of speculative fiction. In fact, her legacy as an author and as a visionary remains important to all who have a love for literature.
Octavia E. Butler was born on June 22, 1947 in Pasadena, California to Laurice and Octavia M. Butler. After the death of her father, her mother continued to work as a housekeeper and it was during her formative years that lessons in race based condescension began to form some of her earliest ideas about the world. Painfully shy throughout her childhood, self-conscious about both her height and her as-of-then undiagnosed dyslexia, this only child began writing at the early age of ten. When asked about the beginnings of her writing career, Butler is quoted as having been inversely inspired by the B science fiction film, Devil Girl From Mars, after which she was certain that she could write a better story. After graduating in 1965 from John Muir High School in Pasadena, Butler proceeded to work as she first pursued her Associate's Degree at Pasadena City College. Throughout this period, Butler began to take classes sponsored by the Writers Guild of America where the result was a body of work that produce her first published short story.
She continued with temporary work until Doubleday published her first novel, Patternmaster, in 1976. Patternmaster was quickly followed by the 1977 Mind of my Mind and the 1978 Survivor, all of these novels linked into the Patternist series which would continue with 1980’s Wild Seed and culminate in 1984’s Clay’s Ark. These five books are separated by the 1979 stand alone novel Kindred, Butler’s most famous work outside of the realm of science fiction. In life, Butler described herself as “comfortably asocial—a hermit living in a large city—a pessimist if I’m not careful; a student, endlessly curious; a feminist; an African American; a former Baptist; and an oil and water combination of ambition, laziness, insecurity, certainty, and drive.”
Butler’s work crosses a number of disciplines including Literature, Environmental Studies, Political Science, and even Bio-Medical Ethics. Yet, as important as her work has been for innovating academic disciplines, Butler’s literary legacy is just as important for the inspiration and enjoyment it provides to independent readers and writers of speculative fiction. In fact, her legacy as an author and as a visionary remains important to all who have a love for literature.