Octavia E. Butler (she/her)

Science fiction as a literary genre has long been dominated with stories by and about white men and boys. When Octavia Estelle Butler first began writing at nine years old, she had no idea that by being both Black and female, she was going to be challenging the perception of the future by centering Blackness and women in it.

Butler was born on June 22, 1947, in Pasadena, California. Her father’s job was shining shoes and her mother was a house cleaner, but her father died while she was young, leaving her widowed mother to support them both. Butler grew up during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s, which would later influence her work. She loved writing and attended every writing course and workshop she could. Early on, however, she noticed the lack of Black characters in science fiction stories, especially any with important roles. So, in 1976, when Butler was in her 20s, she broke into the genre with Patternmaster, her first of thirteen novels, which would later be joined by famous titles such as Kindred, Wild Seed, and Parable of the Sower, as well as many short stories, such as Bloodchild. Over the course of her writing career, Butler won the Hugo and Nebula Awards and the MacArthur Fellowship “Genius Grant.”

Butler’s work is regarded widely as groundbreaking for her complex explorations of the dynamics of race and gender within culture, and she is noted by some as an early contributor to the development of Afrofuturism. Her writing also focuses on themes of climate change, the pharmaceutical industry, poverty, and other things she saw happening in the world. Butler never wanted to write utopias, and she drew from life to ground her fantastical stories in the lived realities of diverse people.

In 1999, Butler moved to Lake Forest Park in Washington State, north of Seattle, where she would live out the last years of her life. She lived quietly, teaching workshops at Clarion West Writer’s Workshop, serving on Seattle’s Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame board, walking to Third Place Books, and taking the bus to the library. Though her medication for hypertension gave her difficulty writing, she published her final book, Fledging, in 2005. Less than a year later, in February of 2006, she passed away outside her home from a fall, possibly caused by a stroke, at 58 years old.

Butler was the first Black woman science fiction writer, but it is clear from her work and words that she never wanted to be the only. Her writing has inspired countless women and Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) to claim their space in the writing world and the future, with the anthology Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements emphasizing this legacy.

Octavia E. Butler, with her innovation, dedication, creativity, and dignity, has forever redefined science fiction as a place where all identities belong – as writers, readers, and main characters.