Initial Reaction

For my author study I chose Octavia Butler. The first thing that caught my eye was that she was a science fiction writer. Some of my favorite books have been science fiction books, although my allegiance is to fantasy. However, when I read some of the synopses of her novels, I was fascinated. They weren't like all of the science fiction works I had read before and I was enticed to read more about her.


She was born June 22, 1947 to Laurice and Octavia Butler. Laurice died when she was a baby so Butler was raised by her mother and grandmother. Butler grew up in a strict Baptist household in Pasadena, California. Butler  was a very shy and introspective girl who spent most of her time at the public library and later was diagnosed with dyslexia. 


Butler says that she“was influenced to write science fiction.... by a bad movie" at the age of 12. Butler says that she thought anyone could "write a better story than that!" So Butler wrote manuscripts to publishers when she was 13 years old and was published in 1971 for her short story "Crossover." She moved to Seattle and later she wrote an entire series called the Patternist series and after, she authored Kindred. She won the Nebula and Hugo awards for science fiction and thereafter won the MacArthur Fellowship grant. With the money she won, Butler moved back to Pasedena where she died after a fall in her home. 


During her life, Butler was a very private person. Many of her relatively close friends did not know a lot about her, leaving much to be wondered. She described herself this way" I'm uncomfortably asocial -- a hermit in the middle of Seattle -- a pessimist if I'm not careful, a feminist, a black, a former Baptist, an oil-and-water combination of ambition, laziness, insecurity, certainty and drive."