by Karen Wada via latimes.com
Octavia E. Butler was a powerful and pioneering voice in science-fiction. The first black woman acclaimed as a master of the genre, she was known for vivid, expertly crafted tales that upended conventional ideas about race, gender and humanity. Although her creations were bold, Butler, who grew up poor in Pasadena, was “a private, reflective person who struggled with shyness and self-doubt,” said Natalie Russell, curator of a new exhibition at the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, CA.
How such struggles influenced her life and art is one of the themes explored in “Octavia E. Butler: Telling My Stories.” Russell said the show uses an invaluable resource — the author’s archive — to examine both her published work and “who she was as told through her personal papers.”
Butler, who died at 58 in 2006, willed the Huntington 354 boxes of materials, a bequest Russell describes as “huge and unedited because Octavia kept everything and passed away unexpectedly after a fall.” She said the exhibition, which runs through Aug. 7, presents about 100 items, including manuscripts, photographs and notebooks filled with writing and self-motivational notes, including one that reads in part, “My novels go onto the bestseller lists. … So be it! See to it!”
Butler started writing science-fiction as a child. She spent years working to establish her career — and a new vision of what’s possible in a genre dominated by white men. Along the way, Russell said, she needed reassurance and reinforcement.
To read more, go to: At the Huntington, see the inspirational note black sci-fi writer Octavia Butler wrote to herself – LA Times
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One of Octavia Butler’s books will finally see the light of film. Butler’s Dawn, which is the first book of the late sci-fi novelist’s Lilith’s Brood collection, is being developed into a TV series. According to Deadline, Allen Bain has made the novel his first acquisition under his company.
Dawn tells the story of humanity’s last survivors who are saved by an ancient alien race right before the destruction of Earth. Humans are given the choice of either mating with the aliens to create a new mixed species or go extinct.
“The Lilith’s Brood trilogy is both timely and poignantly accessible as we continually grapple with questions of racial identity in our country, as well as our own place in an increasingly globalized world.”
Butler was a pioneering sci-fi novelist, and became the first science fiction writer to win the MacArthur Fellowship, aka the “Genius Grant.” She died in 2006 and was posthumously inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2010.
article by Starr Rhett Roque via hellobeautiful.com