Octavia Butler
22 June: Octavia Estelle Butler born in Pasadena, California. Her mother works as a housemaid and her father works as a shoeshine.
OEB's father dies. Her maternal grandmother helps her mother to raide her in what OEB called "a strict Baptist environment." She is slightly dyslexic, very shy, and awkward. So school is difficult for her, both academically and socially. She spends most of her free time at the Pasadena Public Library, where she soon gets interested in science fiction magazines. By the time she is ten she's writing her own stories.
OEB begins writing a series of stories that will become the scaffolding for her Patternist novels.
OEB is made aware of the difficulties she might face in pursuing the life of a writer when she is told by her aunt, ""Honey ... Negroes can't be writers."
OEB is graduated from John Muir High School. She works during the day and attends Pasadena City College at night. She wins a college-wide short-story contest and earns her first income as a writer ($15). One of her classmates, who is involved in the the Black Power Movement, criticizes previous generations of African Americans for being subservient to whites. These comments become the spark for OEB's Kindred, which presents such subservience in a historical context, where it is seen as "silent but courageous survival."
OEB places fifth in the Writer’s Digest Short Story Contest.
OEB is graduated from PCC with an AA in History.
OEB participates in the Open Door Workshop of the Writers Guild of America West, a program designed to mentor minority writers. Her writing impresses Harlan Ellison (famous and influential SF author of more than 1,700 short stories, novellas, screenplays, comic book scripts, teleplays, essays, and a wide range of criticism), an instructor at the workshop.
At Ellison's urging, she attends the Clarion Science Fiction Writers Workshop in Clarion, Pennsylvania. There she meets Samuel R. Delany, and sells two stories, one to Ellison for an anthology and another to the director of the workshop, who publishes it in a 1971 anthology.
OEB begins work on the mss that will become the Patternist series: Patternmaster (1976), Mind of My Mind (1977), and Survivor (1978). These texts set out the themes that will occupy her career: dystopian societies that foreground racial injustice, global warming, women’s rights, and disparities in political power. While such concerns may have gained traction in the past 50 years, they were not very commercially viable for decades.
OEB is finally able to support herself solely by writing.
OEB breaks from her Patternist series to address her PCC classmate from a decade earlier, with Kindred.
OEB finishes the Patternist series with Wild Seed (1980) and Clay's Ark (1984).
"Speech Sounds" wins the Hugo Award for Short Story.
Bloodchild wins the Hugo Award, the Locus Award, and the Science Fiction Chronicle Reader Award for Best Novelette.
"The Evening and the Morning and the Night" is published in Omni Mgazine; receives the Nebula Award for Best Novelette.
Dawn, the first novel in her Xenogenesis trilogy, is published.
Adulthood Rites, the second in the Xenogenesis trilogy, is published.
Imago, the final novel in the Xenogenesis trilogy, is published.
The Parable of the Sower, the first book in The Parable Series, is published.
The Parable of the Sower receives the Nebula Award for Best Novel.
OEB is nominated for and wins a MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Grant. She is the first SF author to receive one.
The Parable of the Talents, the second book in The Parable Series, is published.
The Parable of the Talents receives the Nebula Award for Best Novel.
OEB receives a lifetime achievement award from the PEN American Center.
Lilith’s Brood (a collection of her Xenogenesis series) is published.
OEB intends for four more additions to the Parable series: The Parable of the Trickster, The Parable of the Teacher, The Parable of Chaos, and The Parable of Clay. But the research and writing of the Parable novels overwhelms and depresses her, so she moves on to something "lightweight" and "fun." instead.
Fledgling, a SF vampire novel (her lightweight and fun ms), is published.
24 February: OEB dies of a stroke.
After her death, the zeitgeist of the times begins to match the concerns that occupied OEB's writing career. Her Afro-futurism and feminism become far more popular and culturally significant.
Damian Duffy and John Jennings adapt OEB's Kindred into a graphic novel. It reaches #1 on the New York Times bestseller list and wins the Eisner Award for best adaptation of a graphic novel.
Love quiets fear.
And a sweet and powerful
Positive obsession
Blunts pain,
Diverts rage,
And engages each of us
In the greatest,
The most intense
Of our chosen struggles.