Octavia E. Butler

Octavia Estelle Butler (June 22, 1947 – February 24, 2006) was an American science fiction author and a multiple recipient of the Hugo and Nebula awards.

At 12, she watched the telefilm Devil Girl from Mars (1954) and concluded that she could write a better story.

She drafted what would later become the basis for her Patternist novels.

Happily ignorant of the obstacles that a black female writer could encounter, she became unsure of herself for the first time at the age of 13, when her well-intentioned aunt Hazel said: "Honey ... Negroes can't be writers."

But Butler persevered in her desire to publish a story, and even asked her junior high school science teacher, William Pfaff, to type the first manuscript she submitted to a science fiction magazine.

After graduating from John Muir High School in 1965, Butler worked during the day and attended Pasadena City College (PCC) at night.

As a freshman at PCC, she won a college-wide short-story contest, earning her first income ($15) as a writer.

She also got the "germ of the idea" for what would become her novel Kindred.

An African-American classmate involved in the Black Power Movement loudly criticized previous generations of African Americans for being subservient to whites.

As Butler explained in later interviews, the young man's remarks were a catalyst that led her to respond with a story providing historical context for the subservience, showing that it could be understood as silent but courageous survival.

In 1968, Butler graduated from PCC with an associate of arts degree with a focus in history.

Although Butler's mother wanted her to become a secretary in order to have a steady income, Butler continued to work at a series of temporary jobs.

She preferred less demanding work that would allow her to get up at two or three in the morning to write.

Success continued to elude her.

She soon sold her first stories and by the late 1970s had become sufficiently successful as an author to be able to write full-time.

Her books and short stories drew the favorable attention of the public, and awards soon followed.

She also taught writer's workshops, and spoke about her experiences as an African American, using such themes in science fiction.

She eventually relocated to Washington.

Butler died of a stroke at the age of 58.

Her papers are held in the research collection of the Huntington Library in Southern California.

Octavia Estelle Butler was born in Pasadena, California, the only child of Octavia Margaret Guy, a housemaid, and Laurice James Butler, a shoeshiner.

Butler's father died when she was seven.

She was raised by her mother and maternal grandmother in what she would later recall as a strict Baptist environment.

Growing up in Pasadena, Butler experienced limited cultural and ethnic diversity in the midst of de facto racial segregation in the surrounding area.

She accompanied her mother to her cleaning work where, as workers, the two entered white people's houses through back doors.

Her mother was treated poorly by her employers.

From an early age, an almost paralyzing shyness made it difficult for Butler to socialize with other children.

Her awkwardness, paired with a slight dyslexia that made schoolwork a torment, made Butler an easy target for bullies.

She believed that she was "ugly and stupid, clumsy, and socially hopeless."

As a result, she frequently spent her time reading at the Pasadena Central Library.

She also wrote extensively in her "big pink notebook".

Hooked at first on fairy tales and horse stories, she quickly became interested in science fiction magazines, such as Amazing Stories, Galaxy Science Fiction, and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.

She began reading stories by John Brunner, Zenna Henderson, and Theodore Sturgeon.

At the age of 10, Butler begged her mother to buy her a Remington typewriter, on which she "pecked [her] stories two fingered."

In 1995, Butler became the first science-fiction writer to receive a MacArthur Fellowship.

Born in Pasadena, California, Butler was raised by her widowed mother.

Extremely shy as a child, Butler found an outlet at the library reading fantasy, and in writing.

She began writing science fiction as a teenager.

Butler attended community college during the Black Power movement.

While participating in a local writer's workshop, she was encouraged to attend the Clarion Workshop, then held in Pennsylvania, which focused on science fiction.