Author OctaviaButler
Dies, Leaves Legacy
Nathan Solis
Staff Writer
PCC alumna and Pasadena
native Octavia Estelle Butler, 58,
passed away on Feb. 24 outside of
her Seattle home after falling and
hitting her head.
Butler received an Associates of
Arts degree from PCC in 1968.
The alumna was one of the first
female, African-American authors
to break into the sci-fi genre. Her
first book, 'Kindred,' was published
in 1979. The book tells the story of
a modern-day woman who is trans
ported back to the era of slavery in
the South. The novel was a first to
explore Black culture and slavery in
the science fiction genre. Her writing was more social science fiction
as her topics dealt with women's
rights and black culture.
•fc As an award-winning author,
Butler's science fiction was far
ahead of its time.
She began writing at age 11,
when the genre was predominately
male adolescents. At the time Rod
Serling popularized sci-fi with "The
Twilight Zone."
Butler had a difficult upbring
ing. Her father, a shoe shiner, died
when she was a baby, leaving
Butler's mother to support the family while working as a cleaning
lady. She retrieved books from the
garbage and brought them home
for Butler to read.
Buder escaped reality through
books. "The public library had
been my second home since I was
six," said Butler in her essay
"Positive Obsession.", "I owned a
number of hand-me-down books.
[see Butler, PAGE 3]
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Butler
Continued rtfo'M Mill
But now I wanted a new book - one
I had chosen, one I could keep."
Butler ventured into a bookstore
during the time of segregation, but
was welcomed in. "
Buder faced hard times before
she made a name for herself. She
was teased at school for her dyslexia and so-called masculinity.
Although she tried to make a living
off of writing, she found it a very
difficult endeavor; no publishing
company would read her work.
Struggling to make ends meet,
Butler took a job in a food processing plant and attended night classes
at PCC. "I worked [at the plant]
that semester and I went to PCC at
night," said Butler in the fall 2000
edition of Spotlight magazine. "I
took my first writing class at PCC, a
class called * Short Story Writing.' I
just took the class over and over
again because it was an opportunity
to have your writing read aloud and
critiqued. In the class we were told,
4Write what you know' Heck, I was
writing to get away from what I
knew.'"
Butler suffered from over a
decade of depression due to blood
pressure medication. Butler did not
write during this time. It would be
seven years before she would release
a new book. Her most recent novel,
"Fledgling," was published in 2003
and a nation-wide press tour
marked her return to writing.
Octavia Butler wrote to escape
iceality; when her jeaders read with ,
her, they too escaped for a. short
while. Butler has escaped again, but
her work has been left behind.
A memorial service will be held
for Butler at 7:30 p.m. on March 17
in All Saints Episcopal Church,
located at 132 N. Euclid Avenue in
Pasadena.
