Casting A Shadow: Octavia E. Butler
Award-Winning writer Octavia E. Butler was born June 22, 1947, in Pasadena, CA., raised by her widowed mother (her father passed when Butler was very young) and grandmother. Although Butler had dyslexia, she still had a growing and voracious appetite for reading that was fed by her mother, who would bring back books from homes she worked in, eventually getting a library card for young Octavia. She especially grew fond of science fiction, the genre that she would escape into a world that was all her own. She was painfully shy, so books were her creative outlet until she began writing as a teenager, then attending Pasadena City College where she graduated with an Associate degree, but it was the Clarion Science Fiction workshop taught by Harlan Ellison that really sharpened her talent for writing.
She took on writing seriously, rising as early as 2 AM and going to work thereafter, working multiple menial jobs to sustain her until in 1979 she sold her book “Kindred”, an incredible story about a young Black woman who can travel in time from her present date of 1970 to a pre-Civil War South where she is enslaved and having to protect the slaveholder who is actually a distant relative (very titillating). Although her books received wonderful reviews in their time, they didn’t garner as much attention as her counterparts in the realm of science fiction would, especially when she was relating the subject to real-life strifes and situations (see “Parable of the Talents”, the eerily similarities with recent events and events that take place in the dystopian book speaks volumes). However, time proved to be on her side as Butler was awarded the prestigious MacArthur “Genius” Grant in 1995 and PEN West Lifetime Achievement in 2001 for her works, among many others.
Octavia E. Butler passed February 24, 2006, but not without having received praise for her contributions to the science-fiction community and horror as her books have inspired horror creatives, not just science fiction lovers. Her contributions are now being adapted for not just film but television as well (here’s looking at you, Fox).
Recommended Read: If you’ve never read an Octavia E. Butler book, start with “Kindred”. You cannot go wrong with this time-bending tale.
