In memory of Octavia E. Butler, 1947-2006
Jun. 22nd, 2008 09:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kate_schaeferOctavia E. Butler would have been 61 today, June 22. I miss her, as an important voice in the field of science fiction, as a writer with more work to do, as a friendly acquaintance, as someone I thought I'd have time to know better.
I read some of her work while she alive; I've read more since her death. It was uneven, as you'd expect of someone who wrote for many years and took chances with her writing. If she'd never written anything but Kindred, she would have been an important writer, just as Harper Lee's importance was established by her one novel, To Kill a Mockingbird.
New work comes to middle-aged people. Octavia had expected her middle-aged work to consist of writing and teaching about writing, opening more doors for new writers, particularly new writers of color. She knew the significance of her MacArthur award, her importance as a symbol of hope. She was a charter member of the Carl Brandon Society, an organization that increases the awareness and representation of people of color in genre fiction. She had expected to promote the Carl Brandon Society and its work in the course of her own work, and then suddenly her living work was done.
New work comes to middle-aged people, the work of remembering and mourning more people than one could ever have realized one would care about and miss. Part of that work for me has included joining the Carl Brandon Society and helping to raise money for the Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship Fund, which helps writers of color attend the Clarion and Clarion West Writers Workshops, and eventually Clarion South as well. Today is the first day of Clarion West as well as Octavia's birthday (Clarion in San Diego begins next Sunday, and Clarion South in Australia begins in January). Octavia often taught at Clarion West and Clarion, and celebrated her birthday with Clarion West students in Seattle even more often. We'll miss her today, and at random odd intervals throughout the workshop, at readings where we would have heard her laugh that big, warm laugh, at parties in houses and backyards where we used to see her holding Leslie Howle's little dog.
You don't ever stop saying goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye.
I read some of her work while she alive; I've read more since her death. It was uneven, as you'd expect of someone who wrote for many years and took chances with her writing. If she'd never written anything but Kindred, she would have been an important writer, just as Harper Lee's importance was established by her one novel, To Kill a Mockingbird.
New work comes to middle-aged people. Octavia had expected her middle-aged work to consist of writing and teaching about writing, opening more doors for new writers, particularly new writers of color. She knew the significance of her MacArthur award, her importance as a symbol of hope. She was a charter member of the Carl Brandon Society, an organization that increases the awareness and representation of people of color in genre fiction. She had expected to promote the Carl Brandon Society and its work in the course of her own work, and then suddenly her living work was done.
New work comes to middle-aged people, the work of remembering and mourning more people than one could ever have realized one would care about and miss. Part of that work for me has included joining the Carl Brandon Society and helping to raise money for the Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship Fund, which helps writers of color attend the Clarion and Clarion West Writers Workshops, and eventually Clarion South as well. Today is the first day of Clarion West as well as Octavia's birthday (Clarion in San Diego begins next Sunday, and Clarion South in Australia begins in January). Octavia often taught at Clarion West and Clarion, and celebrated her birthday with Clarion West students in Seattle even more often. We'll miss her today, and at random odd intervals throughout the workshop, at readings where we would have heard her laugh that big, warm laugh, at parties in houses and backyards where we used to see her holding Leslie Howle's little dog.
You don't ever stop saying goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye.
