[News] Octavia E. Butler Memorial, Dies at 58.
Anti-Imperialist News
News at freedomarchives.org
Tue Feb 28 08:24:55 EST 2006
Octavia E. Butler collage
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PLEASE, SEND THIS TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW!!!
Remembrances M. Asli Dukan Steven Barnes Harlan
Ellison Jane Jewell and Robin Bailey of SFWA
Greetings!
It is with deep sorrow that we announce that
another GIANT in our community has passed. Ms.
Octavia Estelle Butler, brilliant master of
sci-fi, fell outside her house in Lake Forest
Park, during what neighbors thought was a stroke.
A neighbor's kid found her outside her house.
They rushed her to a Northwest hospital, and
found that blood had pooled in her brain, they
operated but she passed away on Saturday. She was 58.
Imagenation, who’s mission is to present diverse
images of people from the African Diaspora, feels
a special loss because of Ms. Butler's commitment
to creating alternative perspectives of Black
people, in a world full of negative stereotypes.
We encourage all to purchase her many books and
keep her in your hearts and memories.
Below is a brief history of the life and times of
Ms. Octavia E. Butler followed by warm words from
her closest friends. We begin the praises with
independent filmmaker Asli Dukan whose upcoming
film; INVISIBLE UNIVERSE: A HISTORY OF BLACKNESS
IN SPECULATIVE FICTION will be the last
documentary film to feature Ms. Butler.
Although Octavia E. Butler is no longer with us
physically, her books and portrayals of Black people will live forever.
(Written by Gregory Gates for Imagenation)
Sincerely yours,
K and G pic
Moikgantsi Kgama, Founder & Gregory Gates, Executive Producer, Imagenation
<http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=zyrlftbab.0.yszdgtbab.6yfxobbab.4605&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.imagenation.us%2Fpages%2Fmain.htm>Imagenation:
Cinema and Music for the people
Remembrances
About Octavia E. Butler
For more than 30 years, Seattle science-fiction
novelist Octavia E. Butler dreamed up fantastic
worlds and religions, made-up creatures and
futuristic plots. Then, in her stylistic prose,
she used them to tackle the social issues she was most passionate about.
"Parable of the Talents," a futuristic story
about a utopian community ravaged by civil war,
explored modern-day issues of intolerance, the
growing gap between rich and poor, and
environmentalism. In her first novel, "Kindred,"
she plunged into racial issues when a modern-day
character was transported into the body of a pre-Civil War slave.
In 1995, she won a $295,000 MacArthur Fellowship,
known as the "genius grant." In 2000, she
received the Nebula Award for her novel "Parable
of the Talents." The Nebula award is science fiction's highest prize.
Though she was a giant in the science-fiction
world, Ms. Butler was such a private person that
even her closest friends said they knew little about her.
She was funny, with a dark, dry, self-deprecating wit.
Ms. Butler, who never married, described herself
this way in 1999: "I'm also uncomfortably asocial
— a hermit in the middle of Seattle — a pessimist
if I'm not careful, a feminist, a black, a former
Baptist, an oil-and-water combination of
ambition, laziness, insecurity, certainty and drive."
In a 1999 interview, Ms. Butler told a Seattle
Times reporter that she had been a tall, socially
awkward child in Pasadena, Calif., spending much
of her time in the public library and sending
manuscripts to publishers when she was only 12 or 13.
"I needed to write," she said then. "Writing was
literally all I had consistently. ... I used to
give up writing like some people would give up smoking."
Ms. Butler kept that hard-working intensity as an
adult, her friends said. But even in her success,
she remained grounded. She bought a house with
her MacArthur Fellowship money and traveled mostly to lecture about writing.
An only child, Ms. Butler grew up in Southern
California and moved to Seattle in 1999, after
her mother's death. She studied at Pasadena City
College and California State University, Los
Angeles, before participating in the Clarion
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Workshop in 1970.
<http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=zyrlftbab.0.zszdgtbab.6yfxobbab.4605&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sfwa.org%2Fmembers%2Fbutler%2F>Octavia
E. Butler Home Page
M. Asli Dukan
<http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=zyrlftbab.0.9pf5zsbab.6yfxobbab.4605&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.invisibleuniversedoc.com>
Asli pic
M. Asli Dukan
Octavia Estelle Butler had a tremendous influence
on me. As a teenager, I was fascinated with all
things science fiction. I read books and watched
countless movies, but with the nagging reminder
that I was not represented (Black and Female) in
the genre, practically at all. This changed the
day I found Dawn, a book in the Xenogenesis
series by Octavia Butler. My hand was drawn
towards the book as if by magic. I initially
couldn't tell that the book had Black characters
because the cover I saw did not represent the
main character as she was written, as an African American female.
Maybe I had heard about Octavia somewhere, like a
whisper on the wind, maybe not. It all doesn't
really matter now, the important point is, is
that Octavia Butler existed. If she did not
someone would have had to invent her. But I am
grateful that she did exist. The complexities and
intelligence of this woman would have not been as
meaningful, if she weren't a real living human
being. Her books not only represented African
Americans in a genre that has erased our presence
from the past and the future, but she wrote of
stories and characters that challenged what it
meant to be young or old, woman or man, black or white and alien or human.
Working on my documentary, I have had opportunity
to meet and talk with Octavia and to let her know
what kind of positive influence she had on me and
the directions I am taking with my own work. I am
grateful for that and will cherish the memories that I have of her.
M. Asli Dukan is the Executive Director of The
Invisible Universe Foundation and the
producer/director of the soon to be released
documentary film INVISIBLE UNIVERSE: A HISTORY OF
BLACKNESS IN SPECULATIVE FICTION
<http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=zyrlftbab.0.9pf5zsbab.6yfxobbab.4605&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.invisibleuniversedoc.com>Click
here for more information on INVISIBLE UNIVERSE:
A HISTORY OF BLACKNESS IN SPECULATIVE FICTION
Steven Barnes
<http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=zyrlftbab.0.9szdgtbab.6yfxobbab.4605&p=http%3A%2F%2Fdarkush.blogspot.com>
Steven Barnes pic
Steven Barnes
I consider Octavia to be the most important
science-fiction writer since Mary Shelley. She
wrote about race successfully because she did it with such subtlety.
For a time, Octavia and I lived within walking
distance, and she would come to the house for
dinner. A lady of incredible intelligence and
rather dark humor, she was also what I called "a
REAL writer." She put so much more of herself
into her work than I ever have, or would be capable of.
She was sweet, and kind, and generous, and
brilliant. And now she is gone. Travel well, my
friend. Rest deeply. I'll see you soon.
Steven Barnes, is an well know African-American
science-fiction writer and friend of Ms. Butler
<http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=zyrlftbab.0.9szdgtbab.6yfxobbab.4605&p=http%3A%2F%2Fdarkush.blogspot.com>Steven
Barnes Website
Harlan Ellison
Harlan Ellison pic
Harlan Ellison
Those who knew Ms. Butler agreed that, in many
ways, she was a contradiction. She kept to
herself but was easy to talk to. She was tall and
imposing, and very warm and charming, but there was gravitas in her."
The heroes in her stories were often people of
color, and Ms. Butler's sense of isolation came through in her work.
Ms. Butler had a number of obstacles to overcome
in the writing business, among them being female and being Black.
What [Ms. Butler] was writing for the first time
was a kind of woman's-eye view, a very smart
woman's-eye view, of say, 'Brave New World' or '1984,'.
Writer Harlan Ellison, Ms. Butler's friend and mentor.
<http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=zyrlftbab.0.8szdgtbab.6yfxobbab.4605&p=http%3A%2F%2Fharlanellison.com%2Fhome.htm>Harlan
Ellison Website
Jane Jewell and Robin Bailey of SFWA
Jane Jewell
Octavia is a world-class science fiction writer
in her own right. She was one of the first and
one of the best to discuss gender and race in science fiction.
Jane Jewell is with the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.
.
Robin Bailey
I remembered her deep, rumbly voice.
Robin Bailey, the president of the Science
Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America
<http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=zyrlftbab.0.7szdgtbab.6yfxobbab.4605&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sfwa.org>Science
Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America
Imagenation
College Station
P.O. Box 127
New York, NY 10030
<mailto:gregory at imagenation.us>gregory at imagenation.us
http://www.imagenation.us
Imagenation, a Harlem-based organization, was
established in 1997 to counteract negative images
and stereotypes that are propagated about people
of color, through mass media; and, to establish a
chain of independent art-house cinemas.
Imagenation uses independent cinema and
progressive music to foster solidarity and
cross-cultural exchange throughout the African
Diaspora, with special focus on the USA and South Africa.
The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org
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