“Obsession can be a useful tool if it’s positive obsession.” Obsession, she writes, is simply about not being able to stop. The first is called “ Positive Obsession,” and it tells the story of how Butler became a writer. (I’ve previously blogged about the positive affirmations she wrote in her commonplace books and her method of reading.)Īfter finishing Parable, I found a couple of her essays collected in Bloodchild and Other Stories, which are worth reading for any artist.
I was interested in Butler’s ideas about writing before I even read any of her work. (I wonder how many people remember that 1984 begins when Winston Smith buys an illegal diary to write in.) Clarity and truth will be plenty, if I can only achieve them.Īny time a character writes things down the story in some ways becomes a story about writing and what the act of writing can do for a human being.
I’m not interested in being fancy, or even original. The main character, Lauren, is a young writer who keeps a diary and invents a new religion called “Earthseed” while surviving in an America that has collapsed due to climate change. Butler’s Parable of the Sower, which is so prescient it feels like we’re living the prequel. She has been cited as a godmother of Afrofuturism, and Hilton Als has identified Butler as the " dominant artistic force" throughout Beyonce's visual album Lemonade. Most recently, it has been announced that Ava Duverney will adapt Dawn, one of Butler's Xenogenesis books, for television. If you're interested in diving into the work of Octavia Butler, we've got a guide to getting started with this remarkable writer.“Talent is cheap - you have to be obsessed, otherwise you are going to give up.” The first science fiction writer to ever receive the MacArthur Fellowship, Butler transcended the conventions of her chosen genre, exploring issues of empathy, social normativity, self-destruction, conservation, and tribalism. One of the few women of color publishing in a genre dominated by white men, Butler won the coveted Hugo Award and Nebula Prize twice each for her novella "Bloodchild," her short story "Speech Sounds," and her novel Parable of the Talents, respectively. However, Butler's legacy moves beyond prizes alone. Born on June 22, 1947, Octavia Butler was a groundbreaking writer in American letters.
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