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Today is Octavia E. Butler’s birthday.\u00a0 If she were still alive, she’d be 62 and awesome.\u00a0 She wrote science fiction and fantasy, and one of her aims was to change the world with it.\u00a0 I think she did.\u00a0 I think she still does.<\/p>\n
I was privileged to be Octavia’s friend, to know her and hang with her during the last years of her life.\u00a0 I went shopping with her, ate at (vegetarian) restaurants with her, attended stage performances with her, sat on author panels with her.\u00a0 I got me a lot of Octavia E., though of course not enough to make up for her being gone now.<\/p>\n
Octavia was pure-D gorgeous, beautiful in every way, inside and out.\u00a0 “No, I wasn’t,” I can hear her saying in my head.\u00a0 “You didn’t know!”\u00a0 But I did know, and so did so many other people.\u00a0\u00a0 At the memorial service held for her in 2006, another science fiction author who had met her and been in her presence for only\u00a0one short hour was in tears as he spoke about how deeply\u00a0she had affected him.\u00a0 Another man who knew her in connection with her video interviews there\u00a0at the Science Fiction Museum walked up to the podium, looked out at the people gathered together, said “Thank you” in a trembling voice, and walked unsteadilyback to his seat.\u00a0<\/p>\n
People often ask me how Octavia influenced me as a writer.\u00a0 I tell them that aesthetically I’m much closer to Samuel R. Delany when it comes to what I try to do.\u00a0 But Octavia did affect me in two ways.\u00a0 First, she emphasized how important it is for writers to tell the truth.\u00a0 To find it, figure it out, dig for it if you have to, climb for it, fly for it.\u00a0 Go where it is and get it and bring it back whole for your readers.\u00a0 Second, she gave me money.\u00a0 Over $1000.\u00a0 And if you don’t think that has something to do with what I write and what I’ve been able to get written, you are not an author or any kind of artist yourself.\u00a0 And if you are an artist or author of\u00a0 some kind, you understand the connection intimately.<\/p>\n
At\u00a0Octavia’s memorial service in Seattle in 2006, I lit a candle in her name and poured a libation for her spirit, as is traditional in my spiritual practice.\u00a0 I brought out the Christmas cards she’d sent me: a mother tiger and two cubs in the snow; Mount Rainier towering above the clouds, just the way she did.\u00a0 I spoke about her early membership in the Carl Brandon Society, a nonprofit organization that supports increased representation of people of color in the fantastic genres.\u00a0 And I repeated her directive, what she’d told me about her membership: “Use me,” Octavia had said.\u00a0 “Use my name.”<\/p>\n
Soon after the memorial service, a some of the many people who she had affected put together a scholarship fund\u00a0in her name and gave the fund’s administration to the Carl Brandon Society.\u00a0 The Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship Fund has just sent off its fifth full payment for a student of color to attend a Clarion or Clarion West Writers Workshop.\u00a0 Five writers of color have been able to attend Clarion or Clarion West, the workshops where Octavia got her start as a professional science fiction author and where she taught several times.\u00a0 She’s having an influence.\u00a0 She’s changing the world, and\u00a0I’m using her name, exactly the way she wanted me to.<\/p>\n
If you loved Octavia, if you still<\/strong> love her,\u00a0no matter how brief or distant your encounters with her, no matter if you knew her, rode the bus with her once, or only (”only!”) read her work, celebrate the passing of her birthday today with a smile of thanks.\u00a0 And if you’re able to donate to her scholarship fund, either by sponsoring Tempest in the Clarion West\u00a0Write-a-thon so that part of your contribution goes to Clarion West and part to the fund, or by donating directly via the Carl Brandon Society’s website at www.carlbrandon.org<\/a>, well, so much the better.<\/p>\n If you haven’t read any Octavia E. Butler yet, now’s a good time to start.\u00a0 Though she’s best\u00a0remembered for her novels, I adore her short story collection, Bloodchild<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 If you’d really prefer a novel, I recommend you start with the last one she finished.\u00a0 That’s Fledgling<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Let me know what you think.<\/p>\nAnd now a word from our sponsor…<\/h4>\n
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