Octavia E. Butler Life + Legacy
About Octavia E. Butler
Photographer: Mark Hanauer
Octavia E. Butler (1947-2006) was the first black woman to come to international prominence as a science fiction writer. Incorporating powerful, spare language and ich, well-developed characters, her work tackled race, gender, religion, poverty, power, politics and science in a ways that touched readers of all backgrounds. Butler was a towering figure in life and in her art and the world noticed. A critical force, she received numerous awards, including a MacArthur “genius grant”, both the Hugo and Nebula awards, the Langston Hughes Medal, and a PEN Lifetime Achievement award.
About herself, Octavia E. Butler once wrote: “I’m a fifty-three-year-old writer who can remember being a ten-year-old writer and who expects someday to be an eighty-year-old writer. I’m also comfortably asocial – a hermit in the middle of Seattle – a pessimist if I’m not careful, a feminist, a black, a former Baptist, an oil-and-water combination of ambition, laziness, insecurity, certainty, and drive”
(Bio from Parable of the Sower, Grand Central Publishing, 2000 edition, p.346)
Education
AA, Pasadena City College (1968),
Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Workshop, Class of 1970
Attended classes, California State University, Los Angeles
Open Door Writers Project, University of California at Los Angeles
Awards
Hugo – 1984 Best Short Story, for Speech Sounds
Hugo – 1985 Best Novelette, for Bloodchild
Nebula – 1985 Best Novelette, for Bloodchild
Nebula – 2000 Best Novel, for Parable of the Talents
Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame – 2009
Dean for America
MacArthur Fellowship – 1995
Books Published
Patternmaster – 1976
Mind of My Mind – 1977
Survivor – 1978
Kindred – 1979
Wild Seed – 1980
Clay’s Ark – 1984
Dawn – 1987
Adulthood Rites – 1988
Imago – 1989
Parable of the Sower – 1994
Bloodchild and Other Stories – 1995
Parable of the Talents – 1998
Lilith’s Brood – 2000
Short Stories / Essays
Bloodchild and Other Stories (1995)
Bloodchild and Other Stories (2005 – Includes “Amnesty” and “Book of Martha”)
Unexpected Stories (2015)
Select Additional Resources
George, Lynell. A handful of earth a handful of sky: the work of Octavia E. Butler. Angel City Press 2020.
Delany, Samuel. Octavia E. Butler: The Last Interview and Other Conversations. Melville House Publishing, 2023.
Why Should You Read Sci-Fi Superstar Octavia E. Butler? - Ayana Jamieson + Moya Bailey
Explore the works of science fiction visionary Octavia E. Butler, whose novels, such as “Parable of the Sower,” influenced the growing popularity of Afrofuturism.
Lesson by Ayana Jamieson and Moya Bailey, directed by Tomás Pichardo-Espaillat