OCTAVIA BUTLER — THE GENIUS

 Octavia’s Genius Continues To Shine

• Interview with Octavia, the GENIUS, on Democracy Now 

 

• Week  of March 8th, 2021

Inducted Into American Women Hall of Fame

 

• Week of March 1st, 2021 a space landing was named for her

https://www.space.com/perseverance-rover-mars-landing-named-for-octavia-butler

• Week of September 2, 2020, she made the New York Times Best Seller List
  

https://theglowup.theroot.com/it-took-nearly-50-years-but-this-week-octavia-butler-1844956328

                                           

Blog originally published July, 2017

My  buddy Octavia Butler has a full-scape fabulous  headshot plastered on the entrance wall of The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens, in San Marino, Calif.

“She did it,” was all I could say — and I said it out loud as I got out of my car and walked across the museum’s parking lot.

I was there for the press preview of “Octavia E. Butler: Telling My Stories,” an exhibit exploring the life and work of this celebrated science fiction author.

I got goose bumps that were just like the ones that I experienced the day, a few years ago, when I passed by Pasadena City College during Black History Month and I spotted a huge banner with her photo flying above the trees.

Octavia  led her life as just a regular kinda person you might encounter at the bus stop, the dollar store, the thrift store or in line at the local post office.  You might have seen her at any of these spots – she frequented them all. She rode public transportation.

Well, there’s a major exception to her being like everyone else; Octavia was a genius as recognized by her being awarded the 1995 MacArthur Genius Fellowship Award for fiction.

Octavia presented herself in a manner that said “ordinary.” However, she was extraordinary.

At 4 years old, Octavia says she was telling herself stories; what some might call daydreaming.

At the age of 10, she was writing stories, many of which she kept and I suspect were among the “two four-drawer file cabinets and 35 large cartons” delivered to the Huntington after her death in 2006.

It was one of those early morning telephone calls — maybe some would call it a late night call since it was still dark — when the voice of our mutual friend said matter-of-factly,  “She has passed away.”

Octavia E. Butler passed away on February 4, 2006, at the age of 58. Only a week or so, before,  she had mentioned to me that she was having trouble with her medications.

And so our friendship that began in 1967 at Pasadena City College, where I met this shy and humble genius, moved into my world of memories.

I was often in her company at her home where the Afro Relations Club meetings were held.  She was secretary and I a member of the organization that worked to promote understanding between African and African American students and to foster positive relationships.

She Didn’t Talk About Herself

Back then I had no idea that she was a writer; she never made such an announcement. For me, I was getting C-minus grades in my English class for writing what the teacher assistant continually scribbled on my papers: “You write about trite things —grow up.” The assistant  would also tell me this when I had to meet with her.

John Appiah, a Ghanian student who founded the club and was president, says he, like me, had no idea that his secretary was a prolific writer.

Octavia was, as I saw her, another one of us Black junior college students, in a time of out-front American racial turmoil, trying to make sense of our existence in this land that didn’t feel quite like home.

And then, it seems, she was suddenly all over the place. Book after book was being published.

Instead of the low-wage jobs she had taken, getting up early to punch the clock so she would have time to write, by the late 1970s she was able to pay her rent and buy food and a monthly bus pass (and probably more) from her earnings as an author.

What, way beyond her literary genius, made Octavia so special was her ability to see herself as an everyday person.  “It’s just me,” she would frequently say to me when I would write an opinion column about her — trite stuff perhaps — according to the teacher assistant back at PCC.

When Octavia garnered the MacArthur Genius Award in 1995 she pretty much said the same thing.

I attended the event and there wasn’t any fanfare  — Octavia would have been quite uncomfortable with a lot of goings-on.

Donna Oliver, friend of Octavia’s since kindergarten, says “she was very humble, shy and always low-key.” Oliver quickly added, in what turned out to be an utterance quite similar to mine when she saw Octavia’s picture on the wall at The Huntington when she parked her car, “You go girl” she  shouted.

Oliver well remembers the pink notebook Octavia kept her writings in during their  elementary school years — it is part of the exhibit.

One of Octavia’s handwritten notes to herself, that is on display, declares, ” I will be a famous author. . . ”

Serious but humorous is how both Oliver and I describe Octavia, the wonderful person I was so privileged to know.

What Was Special About Her Childhood?

In 1995, as a guest on my syndicated Pasadena-based cable television show, “Talk About Parenting with Shirlee Smith,” Octavia shared her childhood experiences that influenced her creative genius. Of course she didn’t call it that — these are my words — she just called it her childhood.

“My mother read to me when she came home after she had worked all day,” Octavia told the studio audience and television viewers. She went on to talk about being hooked on books and her mother leading her into reading the books herself.

Octavia talked about the influence parents have when it comes to steering their children in a direction that supports the interest of the child and not the interest of the parent.

She revealed her humorous side when she detailed the punishment she received from her mother for ruining her shoes, and how she turned the “you’re in trouble” into a moment of revelation; a time-out, she discovered, actually was a time for daydreaming and for making up stories.

The Literary Genius

Natalie Russell, assistant curator of literary manuscripts at The Huntington and curator of the exhibition, reports, “By the time the collection had been processed and catalogued, more than 40 scholars were asking to get access to it. In the past two years, it has been used nearly 1,300 times — or roughly 15 times per week, making it one of the most actively researched archives at The Huntington.”

Butler’s published works

Patternmaster (1976); Survivor (1978); Kindred (1979); Wildseed (1980); Clay’s Ark (1984); The Evening and the Morning (1987); Dawn (1987); Adult Rites (1988); Imago (1989); Parable of The Sower (1993); Parable of the Talents ( 1998); Mind of My Mind;Fledgling; Bloodchild.

Butler’s Awards

MacArthur Fellowship Genius Award — fiction (1995)
Nebula Award — Best Novel — Parable of the Sowers(2000)
Hugo Award — Best Short Story (1984)
Hugo Award — Best Novelette (1985) Bloodchild

Learn More

Visit the exhibit,  Octavia E. Butler – Telling My Stories – closes August 7. The exhibit is closed

Octavia Butler’s Talk About Parenting interview:  View