So is the one-page letter from the MacArthur Foundation notifying Butler she'd been chosen as a fellow in 1995. Early copies of her first editions are here. Large glass cases hold early notebooks and drawings, report cards from her days at Pasadena City College and notes to herself about character development. Butler/The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens It was important to her that the worlds she created be credible to her readers. Curator Natalie Russell went through some "8,000 manuscripts, letters and photographs, and an additional 80 boxes of ephemera" to create an exhibition that shows, in chronological order, how Butler's career was born and evolved, and what influenced her.īutler often posted reminders to herself when she created characters and worlds. "Octavia Butler: Telling My Stories" is an exhibit currently at the Huntington Library, in the Pasadena suburb of San Marino, Calif. "They don't call it that," she corrected him firmly "somebody probably made that up.") When she died in 2006, she was lauded as a pioneer, an icon and one of America's best writers. ("You have a Genius Grant," Charlie Rose said in a 2000 interview. Octavia Estelle Butler became one of the world's premier science fiction writers, the first black female science fiction writer to reach national prominence, and the only writer in her genre to receive a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship. First: "Geez, I can write a better story than that!" And second: "Somebody got paid for writing that story!" If they could, she decided, then she could, too.Įventually she did exactly that. She was 9 years old and saw a 1954 B-movie called Devil Girl from Mars, and two things struck her. Octavia Butler used to say she remembers exactly when she decided to become a science fiction writer. (c) Patti Perret/The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens A lifelong bibliophile, she considered libraries sacred spaces. For the Network, that looks like managing our Tumblr and Twitter accounts and staying informed about how Octavia Butler’s legacy moves through digital spaces which helps to nurture all kinds of Black Girl Magic online and off.Octavia Butler at home. Digital Alchemy is a concept I came up with to think about the transformative way women of color and Black women in particular are using online tools to do revolutionary work those tools were never imagined to do. Her attention to her craft is something that can’t be denied.
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That type of diversity is rare and it speaks to readers. Her work is super queer, and gender fluid, and there are Black and brown people at the center. “Butler’s worlds hold so much possibility.
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Moya Bailey, Digital Alchemist for OEBLegacy: Butler Legacy Network to preserve and promote research and scholarship on one of the preeminent science fiction and fantasy writers of the 20th century.
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We’re journalists, writers, musicians, physicians, humanitarians, scholars, K-12 teachers, people with regular jobs.” Won’t you join us? ~Ayana Jamiesonĭr. We maintain a digital presence as a community to gather, share information, and talk about Octavia Butler, her legacy, and the things that we’re doing that reflect some of the principles in her writing. Butler Legacy Network is an organization “I founded in 2011 during my doctoral research on Octavia Butler.