African-American writer Octavia Estelle Butler was born June 22, 1947, in Pasadena, California, to Laurice and Octavia M. Guy Butler. She is the first African-American woman to gain popularity and critical acclaim as a major science fiction writer.She was the only child of five pregnancies that her mother was able to carry to term. Her father was a shoeshine man and died when Butler was very young. She lived with her mother in a very racially mixed neighborhood, where many of her memories are stories that she heard from her mother and grandmother. Butler was very shy in school and was a frequent daydreamer, which made school very difficult.
She overcame dyslexia and began writing at the age of ten to escape loneliness and boredom; around the age of twelve she became interested in science fiction. Butler received an associate of arts degree in 1968 from Pasadena City College, then attended California State University, Los Angeles and the University of California, Los Angeles. Much of her success came from the Open Door Program of the ScreenWriters Guild of America and the Clarion Science Fiction Writers Workshop. Butler also spent time researching developments in biology, the physical sciences, and genetics. While attending school Butler held down a lot of odd jobs. Her work experiences come through in the character of Dana in her novel Kindred.
Butler has won a number of awards for her writing. In 1984 she won a Hugo Award for her short story, “Speech Sounds.” In 1985 she won another Hugo for her novella Bloodchild, which also won the 1984 Nebula Award. Both the Hugo and Nebula Awards are determined by other science fiction writers and fans. Butler's Patternists Series, published between 1976 and 1984, tells of a society that is run by a specially bred group of telepaths. This series includes the books Patternmaster, Mind of My Mind, Survivor, Wild Seed, and Clay's Ark. Butler has been well received by the critics.
Butler has been quoted as saying, "Every story I write adds to me a little, changes me a little, forces me to reexamine an attitude or belief, causes me to research and learn, helps me to understand people and grow...Every story I create, creates me. I write to create myself.”
Her novel The Parable of the Sower (1993) was a finalist for the Nebula Award and a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. A sequel, Parable of the Talents, is currently in preparation. In 1995, Butler won the MacArthur Foundation genius grant.
Reference:
I Dream A World: Portraits of Black women Who Changed America
Barbara Summers, editor
Workman Publishing, 1989