May 20, 2025 • 36 mins
Octavia Butler: Visionary of Afrofuturism and Perseverance
This episode explores the life and legacy of Octavia Butler, an influential science fiction author renowned for her role in pioneering Afrofuturism. Raised in poverty and facing numerous challenges, including dyslexia, Butler's journey is one of remarkable self-belief, dedication, and groundbreaking vision. The hosts delve into her early influences, her determination to become a writer, and the significant impact of her works, particularly 'Kindred' and 'Parable of the Sower.' Butler's story is a testament to the power of persistence and the importance of diverse voices in literature.
Sources today are:
1 https://www.womenshistory.org/education-
resources/biographies/octavia-estelle-butler
2 https://www.octaviabutler.com/theauthor
3 https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/remembering-afrofuturist-
octavia-butler
4 https://writershq.co.uk/10-iconic-quotes-to-celebrate-octavia-
butlers-birthday/
5 https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2017/07/10/535879364/o
ctavia-butler-writing-herself-into-the-story
6 https://commongood.cc/reader/a-few-rules-for-predicting-the-
future-by-octavia-e-butler/
7 https://www.vulture.com/article/octavia-e-butler-profile.html
00:00 Introduction and Personal Anecdote
01:16 Casual Conversation and Weekend Plans
01:53 Inspirational Quote and Introduction to Octavia Butler
04:23 Early Life of Octavia Butler
07:48 Octavia Butler's Writing Journey
13:22 Octavia Butler's Work Ethic and Habits
18:15 The Challenges of Being a Writer
19:28 Octavia Butler's Bold Beginnings
21:30 Defining Afrofuturism
23:27 Butler's Impactful Works
27:29 Prophetic Visions in Butler's Writing
31:53 Butler's Legacy and Advice
36:21 Conclusion and Call to Action
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
audio1801500901 (00:07):
So now I've signed up to eight pounds a
month for St.
John's Ambulance, which just,you know, it is valid.
But he, he was preying on thevulnerable, I feel, right thing
wrong reasons.
Oh, I'll give you a piece ofadvice that I was given as a
young girl and it's, it'ssuccinctly pick him in the balls
and run.
I think if you ever feelcornered.
(00:28):
By someone with balls.
Yeah.
Kicking in the balls and runningbecause I misunderstood what he
was.
I was clearly lost and I like,clearly didn't know what I was
doing and he waved me.
That's what he was looking forand I thought, oh brilliant.
You'll be able to tell me whereSoandso is.
And instead I signed up for8,000 month, it was still lost.
What a predator.
I bet they don't even know he'sin there.
(00:51):
Yeah.
And I hate it when they're like,just so you know, I'm valid.
Here's my id.
Here's our website, here'severything.
And that's like the more youtalk about that kind of stuff,
the more it makes me feel like,no, this is, I'm being scammed.
But then I was like, you are inikea.
They wouldn't just let you inikea.
Well, I've been in IKEA and I'msuper shady, so do not take that
as a guarantee quality.
(01:12):
Shall we begin it?
Shall we begin it?
Indeed.
Hi, Karen.
Excellent.
Hi Vicki.
How are you?
Yeah, I'm ready.
I'm, I'm feeling good.
How are you?
Hey, I'm okay.
I'm all right.
I've got spa day Smart.
I'm really looking.
Yay.
And I've got afternoon tea onSunday.
I've got a lush weekend ahead.
(01:34):
So you have earned it by thesound and it start with, which
is always lovely.
Oh, thanks.
Very happy, pleased to begrouped in with the same
category as spa days and creamcheese.
I mean, jeez.
Quite, that's a, a thumbs up anda half.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
I feel like we should trysomething a little bit different
(01:56):
today.
So I'd like to start with aquote.
Um, do you feel, are you readyto begin?
I'm ready.
Absolutely.
Okay.
So here we have an excerpt froma note to self written by
today's subject.
Would you like to read it?
Yes, quote, my books will beread by millions of people.
I will buy a beautiful home inan excellent neighborhood.
(02:19):
I will send poor blackyoungsters to writers'
workshops.
I will help poor blackyoungsters broaden their
horizons.
I will help poor blackyoungsters to go to college.
I will get the best ofhealthcare for my mother and
myself.
I'll hire a car whenever I wantor need to.
I.
I will travel whenever andwherever in the world that I
(02:40):
choose my books will be read bymillions of people.
So be it.
So see it.
Oh, so be it.
See to it.
Thank you.
Well, that's lovely.
I feel like that should be mymorning mantra and I get up.
That's beautiful.
It's a, it's, it's a rallyingcry, isn't it?
(03:00):
Yes.
So you get the energy there.
Think about a shy little girlwho is sidelined in school
because she has thisunrecognized, unsupported
dyslexia.
Growing up to have theself-belief to say those things
and to aspire to be a successfulauthor.
(03:24):
And not only achieving thosegoals, but smashing them, she
being read by millions, uh,being considered the mother of
an entire genre of fiction andhailed as a prophet by people
who live in the age that shewrote about as the future.
(03:44):
So get ready to be inspired tosee new sons and to understand
that the bridge that brings usto our goals is built from
nothing, more or less than hardwork and self-belief.
Meet Octavia Butler.
And today's sources are women'shistory.org.
And.
(04:05):
Author website for OctaviaButler herself, a biography
about her on the National Museumof African American History
articles on NPR and on theCommon Good, and an article on
vulture.com.
So we are going back to 1940s.
(04:28):
We are in California and OctaviaButler.
Grew up black and poor inPasadena.
Legal segregation was dead, butde facto segregation was very
much alive.
So her father worked as a shoeshiner, but died when she was
just three.
(04:49):
And her mother, yeah, her motherwas a working mom and often
working in situations where theywould live in the homes of the
people that they worked.
That she worked for.
So she worked hard andeventually saved up enough to
rent a home for herself andLittle Octavia, but still
(05:11):
working these really demandinghands-on jobs in the homes of
white families.
And Octavia had that kind of,housing instability.
In addition to that, she wasjust this like tall, awkward kid
who didn't really find it easyto fit in or to make friends.
(05:33):
Okay.
And she sort of said I waslonely, but when I wrote I
wasn't.
So, it was a resource for her.
And she loved animals, she lovedhorses, she loved reading books.
She apparently would sit on her.
Grandmother's porch on thechicken farm and dream up these
(05:53):
stories about animals.
And when she could, she wouldescape to the local library
where she would love to readscience fiction and comic books
and other work that just lit herimagination up and gave her
this.
Escape from her awkwardness,from the kind of drudgery that
she saw as adult life and theinsecurity that she must have
(06:17):
felt.
Yeah.
Books are so special, aren'tthey?
They really are.
When you are lonely.
Books are just, yeah.
And the radio actually, I alwaysthink that about the radio, that
it's really good company andwe're so lucky to have access to
like, what if that librarywasn't there?
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
Yeah.
That such an important point.
(06:39):
And you know, in a time, well,in all times, I suppose when
there's such a competition for.
Cash resources.
They always seem under threat aswell, don't they?
Libraries and radios.
Yeah.
It's like an easy cut, butdevastating to people's lives,
so, yeah.
So we've got, um, Octavia,little Octavia and one day, I
(07:02):
think she's about maybe about 11years old, she's taken to see
this movie called Devil Girlfrom Mars, which doesn't sound
amazing.
It's worse than it sounds.
No, and it's so bad that Octaviakind of realizes two things.
One, somebody got paid forwriting that nonsense and two,
(07:24):
damn she could do better.
So she decides her path is set.
She is going to be a sciencefiction writer, so right.
We're gonna do this, but it wasinspiring.
But in like the completeopposite way in what they want,
the worst way.
But sometimes that's a greatthing where you're just like,
well, geez, if that's all ittakes, I've definitely got that,
(07:44):
that in my locker.
If they do it.
Yeah.
Like absolutely.
Why can't I?
So we're gonna now like zipahead, we're gonna skim over
school, school, school, teens,early adulthood.
And since we are both intoself-development, all that sort
of thing, I thought it would bekind of fun to dip into the how
of Octavia Butler's work lifeand how she got to the point in
(08:08):
her career where she achievedsome of her goals and was a
published author.
I think it's a great example ofhow relevant she is to our
modern ways of thinking.
So sweet.
I would say, uh, that OctaviaButler is somebody who was a
craftswoman as well as anartist.
So she had these huge, like boltfrom the blue artistic ideas,
(08:32):
but she also just knuckled downand got on with the daily grind
of the job, which, you know.
She's from a lower working classbackground and nothing's handed
to her.
So that is, that is hard.
Specifically after she graduatedfrom high school, she would get
up at 2:00 AM.
(08:53):
Every day to write before work.
And then she would go off and dowhatever job could keep the
lights on without sort of likedraining her mentally or her
creativity.
So her website lists a few ofthe jobs she had as she was a
telemarketer, which I would findquite draining, but fine.
Yeah, sounds right.
She was a dishwasher and thisone I'm feeling like I could do
(09:16):
right now.
She was also a potato chipinspector.
Oh, so there you go.
Be sure.
But yeah, so taste, this is the,this is unclear, but I might
write to them and try to findout, um, at any rate, they're
not like super taxing jobsnecessarily for the mind, but to
get up every day and to have thededication every single day to
(09:39):
get up and write for work.
And then after work, she's goingto these creative writing
groups, creative writingworkshops.
A bit of community college.
So she's just making it happen.
Yeah.
And.
L as luck could have it, one ofthe workshops she attended was,
being taught by an author calledHarlan Ellison, who had this
(10:00):
like, really well establishedtrack record in speculative
fiction, sci-fi screenplays andanthologies.
Whose work she respected and therespect was mutual.
So, oh, he's, yeah, he sawsomething in her, and he's
quoted as saying she could notwrite screenplays, which is what
he was actually teaching in thecourse she attended, but she
(10:24):
could just write, like, he couldsee that she was really
skillful.
Okay.
So not necessarily, and that'sanother important lesson, isn't
it?
That.
Um, you're not gonna be able tospecialize in everything.
Yeah, but that doesn't mean thatyou can't do the, I'm also ing
holding as well, isn't it?
Like, don't, if you don't fit inone hole, that's fine.
Like there's a gazillion otherholes you can fit in.
(10:46):
Like find your tribe, isn't it?
You will find your Yes.
Absolutely.
And sometimes we love somethingand we admire it, so we want to
be able to do it.
But then you realize like,actually that's just not me.
I, I'm more of a consumer ofthat thing than a producer of
that thing.
So I think that must have beenright or Yeah.
Yes, precisely.
(11:08):
So she's good at it.
Just not good at that specificthing.
But he says, I know of aworkshop, called the Clarion
Workshop, which is forspecifically science fiction and
fantasy writers.
And I think you should go.
And apparently he even chuckedsome money into the travel fund
'cause it was all the way acrossthe country.
I think it's in.
(11:28):
In the year she went, I think itwas in Pittsburgh, she's in
California.
There's thousands of miles on aGreyhound bus.
So a lot of money and it's sixweeks long, so she's out of work
for that time.
But damn I just make the pointof.
Like, leave me your job for sixweeks and like,'cause I imagine
she'd have had to quit.
I don't think they'd keep adishwasher post open would they?
(11:50):
For six weeks, right?
No.
And then like that takes guts,doesn't it?
It really does.
And.
Vulnerability.
If you are earning at that leveland you're coming from that
background, you probably havenot got a nest egg to fall back
on.
You're probably kind of livinghand to mouth.
So for her to kind of say, okay,this is important to me.
(12:12):
This isn't in my notes, but justas an aside, she makes this
point.
Uh, she has this aunt whotrained to be a nurse and her
aunt.
Was the first person in thefamily to go to any kind of
formal post high schooleducation, and her aunt was
impressing on her the importanceof, you know, having a trade and
so on and so on.
(12:33):
But Octavia Butler said,actually, the example that I got
was.
You do what you know is rightfor you.
And so for me, that was tofollow my dreams and become a
writer.
So I took the lesson, not in theway she intended.
Yes, because her aunt reallywanted her to learn a trade.
But yeah, anyhow, she had thislike inner funk fire and just
(12:56):
kind of went, went for it.
She went to this workshop bet onherself and had that.
Support of her family.
And she went and she wrote, andshe struggled socially.
It wasn't some sort of likemagical pania that fixed her,
you know, social awkwardness.
And I say fixed her in scarequotes, but you know what I
(13:17):
mean?
She, she went, even though itwas uncomfortable.
Yeah, and it worked because soonafter the workshop and her
completing her associate'sdegree at the City College, she
started selling her stories andwithin 10 years she become
successful enough to be afull-time author, which is Get
Out accomplishment.
(13:38):
She was doing so good.
I haven't heard of her.
Her.
Yeah.
So this is it.
The theme is Hard work support.
Self-belief, most of all.
Hard work.
Um, like she reminds me, there'sa quote that's like, hard work
puts you where good luck canfind you.
And I think that's her vibe.
(14:00):
I love to me.
Love that.
I totally agree with that.
I was discussing with my, um,friends the other week like,
what does look mean to you?
'cause look such a fascinatingconcept.
And we all, there was four of usin the conversation, I think
three or four, and we all hadcompletely different concepts of
what look means.
Like, oh that's reallyinteresting with a pot and then
you get.
Apart for life and then it, youuse it throughout your life,
(14:24):
basically.
Oh, no.
Fine.
Yeah.
So some people use it reallyearly.
Some people get their look lateron in life, but there is like a
set amount and then there was mewho was basically trying to say
that, but I was not saying it aselegantly as like, I kind of
think you make your own look alittle bit and you take your
opportunities and you makeopportunities, which are then
(14:45):
seen as lucky.
Right.
But I.
Basically what she was saying.
What did she say?
Hard work puts you where?
Good look, I think it was.
That's, that's it.
Yeah.
That's much more elegant than myrumbling.
Well, it's three Proseccos downlate at night, but like Yeah,
it's, I believe that Igenuinely, yeah.
Well, if you liked that one, Ithink you're gonna like this
one.
Okay.
I've got another quote for youhere, which I think aligns to
(15:08):
what we, you were just sayingthere, and probably is quite
useful to anybody who works inany kind of creative way.
Quote first, forget inspiration.
Habit is more dependable.
Habit will sustain you whetheryou are inspired or not.
Habit will help you finish andpolish your stories.
Inspiration won't.
Habit is persistence inpractice, unquote.
(15:29):
Yes.
This is like the 5:00 AM clubthing, isn't it?
It's the 2:00 AM club thing.
It's the 2:00 AM clubconsistency.
I've never heard of the 2:00 AMclub.
When she said 2:00 AM I waslike, my God.
But I guess she was startingwork at six or something, wasn't
she?
Right.
Not nine.
Yeah.
I think that's consistency,baby.
That's it.
Exactly.
Um, and to just to bring thatkind of real work a day, getting
(15:53):
on with it work ethic to whatcould be quite an airy fairy
thing to be a creative.
Amazing.
So one of the habits that workedfor Octavia, as we saw in the
opening is to write notes toherself.
And these kind of like.
Vision boards that outlined hermission and how she's gonna
achieve it.
The one at the start was fromone of her notebooks, and I feel
(16:16):
like if she was alive today, shewould be the kind of person who
have the, would have this likeprivate insta that she was the
only follower on.
And she would have all theseideas she wrote in colorful pens
and she just gave herself theselovely little pep talks.
And I've, I've put a couple ofthem here, but yeah, the one,
the one thing that's comingthrough is she's, she's
(16:38):
reminding herself constantly howto write beautifully and
persuasively.
I love the final one.
It says, no entertainment onearth can match a good story,
compellingly told, and this issomething I, I.
Just love.
No matter what you're doing, ifyou're playing a video game, if
you're listening to a podcast,if you are, telling your friends
(17:02):
an anecdote at a party, that'swhat it boils down to.
You're just trying tocompellingly tell that story.
So all those notes are in theHuntington Library in San
Marino, California, where theyhave a collection of our stuff
that you can see.
A lot of them are availableonline it just shows that
journaling's been forever.
Like it's not a cool millennialthing or like a Gen Z thing,
(17:25):
where we bullet journal now andwe, you know, it's been going
on.
This teaching yourself andmanifesting with yourself and
affirming yourself has beengoing on for actual decades.
I dunno, man.
I think this might be an exampleof her being a front runner.
'cause she, oh her, her fictionis all about predicting the
future.
(17:45):
So I just took it to be that shewas just ahead of the curve.
That she was completely, she waspart of this new modern.
But that's'cause I'm an oldfuddyduddy who doesn't do any of
those things.
So what we're, what we'rebuilding towards is a person who
is self-motivated andself-determined and maybe has
(18:08):
felt like enough of an outsiderwhere she was quite happy to
follow her own compass and.
It fits because I think being awriter is quite an isolating job
and Oh my gosh.
Yeah.
It takes a person, it's aspecial person who can do that
job and who can do it in theface of rejection well and doing
(18:28):
well, like, and yeah, not beingfunny.
Like the amount of celebritiesthat get book deals nowadays and
you're just like.
Are you though?
Are you a true writer?
Deep down.
And they might be.
They might be, but it's, thenumbers don't stack.
Yeah, that's, I wanna givepeople the benefit of the doubt,
but it, I know, I know, I agree.
(18:48):
Yeah, there's some real, butthen you see all this effort
getting up at 2:00 AM practicingand workshops and it's like,
have those, have, has ReverendColes has whoever been to.
Or if they are, they justmaking, hey, you know, which I
don't know.
We probably won't be able to putthis in the podcast, but it's
just what I think.
(19:10):
No, I, I fully appreciate whatyou're saying and it is, I'm
always slightly looking a scanat anything that's published by
anyone whose name I know becauseyou're like, if you put a random
name on this, is it still makingit through those gates?
Probably not.
Probably, uh.
So, yeah, I, I hear you.
Right, so she is somebody who iswilling to get to work in a
(19:34):
field where there are really noexamples of someone like herself
working.
She's Oh, yes.
True.
She's very bold.
And when interviewers asked herhow the courage to begin, she,
gave a really good answer.
I've got a quote there.
If you give it.
Uh, when asked how she set outto become a science fiction
(19:54):
writer, when there were so fewexamples of black women working
in the genre, Butler said shenever doubted her abilities.
I assumed that I could do it.
She said I wasn't being brave oreven thoughtful.
I wanted it and I assumed Icould have it, unquote.
Oh, yes.
More of this.
Please, Karl.
Brilliant.
I want more issues in the world.
(20:15):
So inspiring.
Yeah.
So yeah, her intention is towrite science fiction.
It's nothing more or lessrevolutionary and act Yeah.
Than assuming that her work wasjust as legitimate as anyone
else's.
Yeah.
Which seems self-evident, exceptit wasn't published work in
science fiction in specific hadthen and still has got a strong
(20:37):
skew towards publishing whitemale authors.
So for her to get out there anddo it was actually
extraordinarily impactful.
I.
I hate that word, but I've justsaid it.
So there we are, blah, blah,blah.
Um, it had a big impact.
So women in science is stillrare as obviously it's getting
(20:58):
better and better because of allthe, work that's being done
around it, but that I imaginethey're still a minority in that
field and Absolutely.
Yeah.
And that's in reality, let alonein fiction.
Yeah.
That's amazing.
Live it.
Well, she took charge of her owncareer and thought, I'm going to
do it.
I don't care if anybody thinks Ican or should.
I just am.
(21:19):
And it was a fulcrum point tothis new.
Sub genre of science fictioncalled Afrofuturism.
Um, I'm putting you to worktoday.
There's another quote here ifyou'd like to give it that
defines Afrofuturism.
Yes.
Quote, Afrofuturism, which yousee LA defines as a wide ranging
(21:44):
social, political and artisticmovement that dares to imagine a
world where African descendedpeoples and their cultures play
a central role in.
The creation of that world.
Good.
Get that.
So she, she moved the ball downthe field for this.
Okay.
And something to consider inCounterpoint is that Butler
(22:06):
herself is quoted as saying, Idon't recall ever having wanted
to be a black woman fictionwriter.
I wanted to be a writer.
Mm-hmm.
I'm kind of anxious to explorethat because I don't wanna
minimize the importance of whatshe did for diversity of point
of view, or to imply that thatwasn't what she was aiming at or
(22:29):
to, kind of minimize thenecessity.
I think the point that she'smaking is that she refuted the
assumption that there's such athing as a standard science
fiction writer and that she's anexception.
So.
The idea that she's other isfundamentally flawed.
Yeah.
And all points of view should beunderstood to be equally valid.
(22:52):
Of course, African descendedpeople and culture play a
central role in the world.
Any suggestion to the contrary,she just shoes away.
Which is so refreshing and so,um.
I want a different word thaninspirational, but so, um,
self-assured, isn't it?
Yeah, it is.
(23:12):
The word that kept coming to mymind was dignify.
Like she is just a person of somuch dignity and just.
I'm not even gonna dignify that.
I'm not indulging the viewpointthat my point of view isn't
worthwhile.
And so I'll throw this quote outthere that she said about her
own writing as a female and anAfrican American, I wrote myself
(23:36):
into the world.
I wrote myself into the present,the future, and the past.
Lived experience of the worldwasn't there in fiction and she
made them appear and the kindof, probably the best example.
Or the most familiar example ofthat is a book she wrote called
Kindred and that is overtlyabout race.
And she uses a story about timetravel to engage with that and
(24:01):
takes a modern in her time,African American woman and
hurtles her back into AntebellumSouthern Maryland.
And she sees the lives of herenslaved ancestors and she has
to kind of adapt to survive.
So.
It's taking on race in a reallyovert way.
(24:21):
Mm-hmm.
But throughout her work, Butlerhas protagonists and bit part
players who are black and justlive in their lives and doing
it.
Babe, just, just part of the Iknow, because why not?
Yeah, exactly.
Because that is one of the waysin which her work.
Is relevant and real becausethat's what life is actually
(24:44):
like.
It's not just this weirdhomogenous space with white
dudes.
It's everybody out there workingtogether and doing stuff.
So writing herself in thepicture Butler by intention or
by accident, made her writing somuch more real.
So.
There.
We've got her not dignifying,ignorance and prejudice with any
(25:08):
kind of legitimacy, and thenhaving the discipline to just
sit down and absolutely work atit.
And so that's two of the threelegged stool of her career, that
dignity, that hard work.
The third part.
Is magic.
It's just vision.
And that is where we get to whyscience fiction was kind of the
(25:32):
right choice for her.
So.
Like you said, there's so muchawful writing in the world.
Devil Girl from Mars wasn't theonly, you know, bad bit of
writing she will have comeacross, so it can't just have
been, I can do better.
That drove her to that genre.
But she does say in the quotehere why science fiction
(25:54):
particularly appealed to her.
It was so wide open that it gaveher a chance to comment on every
aspect of humanity.
There are no closed doors and norequired formulas.
You can go anywhere with it.
Yeah, and I was just thinkingabout the context of where we're
in.
Is this like the 1960s?
Yeah.
Uh, sixties and seventies.
(26:16):
I think she's, putting theseworks out.
Yeah.
So what?
What does that mean in terms oflike science fiction as a whole?
Like it must be quite a goldenage, I imagine.
I think that TV shows like StarTrek and Battle Star Galactica
lost in Space and movies likeStar Wars really brought it in.
(26:38):
It was a hot property kind ofculturally.
There were all theseanthologies.
Planet of the A.
Yeah.
All of that stuff is out thereand it's hugely mass market
appealing in the United Statesat that time, probably in the UK
as well.
So she's joining a movement inits moment and she's bringing
(27:01):
something new to the table.
She took it, took that kind oflike openness of it.
To show near future versions ofAmerican society and the world
that we're familiar withsometimes.
Mm-hmm.
And where it goes, if it stayson the trajectory it's on.
(27:22):
And she o openly says, thesewere cautionary tales and she
got it right.
So often.
You might wanna have a sip ofwater.
There's a quote here from theNew York Times about, the first
book of a trilogy, which neverended up being completed.
She only ever got to write twoof them, but it's a book called
Parable of the Sower and the NewYork Times here talks about, I.
(27:45):
This book, if you would give usthis.
Mm-hmm.
Enormous quote.
Uh, quite the effects of climatechange are reshaping America.
Those with sufficient resourcesretreat inside protective
communities.
Those, oh my god.
Those with even greaterresources.
Finance and exploratory MarsMission, presumably an attempt
to one day escape her'sdestabilization.
(28:08):
In the political realm, apopulist presidential candidate,
denounces clothes made byscientists promising the
electorate that he's going toreturn us to the glory wealth,
an order of the 20th centuryunquote.
My God, you are joking.
How eerie is it to read that?
(28:31):
So that is what she imagined.
31 years before, Fun.
It was published in 1993 and asa prophet, she's nailing it.
Yes.
Also, the other thing that thishas made me think of, sorry, is,
you know, have you seen inbookshops sometimes they have a
section called.
(28:52):
It's a cautionary tale, not astretch manual, but yeah.
The Margaret Atwood, um, yeah,yeah, yeah, yeah.
Handmade tale.
But she should be right there.
It sounds like this trilogyshould be there.
I think it often is.
Um, especially because it dealswith a lot of ecological issues
that Yeah.
She called it climate change 31years ago.
(29:12):
The.
First time this book appeared inthe Times bestseller list was in
2020.
Ah.
And people were reading it inCovid Times, of course.
And those, those sort ofprescient cautionary notes.
I wonder if Butler who sadly haddied by then, died back in 2006.
(29:34):
Might have been her reaction.
Might have been, I'm sorry.
To have been Right.
But I'm really glad that peopleare listening now.
Mm.
Um, so yeah, I, I just, I cannotsay enough, having done this
research, I've left out as muchas I could.
I really have.
(29:54):
You just had the wind knockedout of you again and again by
how on the nose She is.
Wow.
So there's like an interviewNice intellectual next level,
right?
Yeah.
Just being able to kind of seewhere.
The road is leading in which waythe wind is like society.
Wind is blowing.
Yeah, exactly.
And imagine where we're going.
(30:15):
And you know, there's like aquote from her in 2005 talking
about how she's unsettled tosee, we're now at a point where
we're more interested inbuilding prisons and schools and
libraries.
And she talks about where thatleads and.
It's here, this, this, thiscurrent sort of like swing to
populism and so on and so on.
All of these things that she'slike, uh, hey guys, this could
(30:39):
be what's happening.
It's what's happening.
So you, you come away fromreading her fiction thinking
about it for a very long time,and I don't think you can give a
higher compliment to a personwhose central concern was to
kind of point at.
Likely negative outcomes and tryto warn people.
(31:01):
Mm-hmm.
So for all of that, somebody inone of her workshops, asked her
how to end the suffering in theworld, which was a theme in so
many of her books.
It is, you know, a big ask, Seeall those problems that you've
flagged up, what would you likeus to do about them?
Uh, and this is what she said,uh, quote, there's no single
(31:22):
answer that will solve all ofour future problems.
There is no magic bullet.
Instead, there are thousands ofanswers.
At least you can be one of themif you choose to be unquote
correct.
I mean, Greta Berg wasn't even.
A glimmer, I imagine, in herparents' eye at this point and
Yeah, absolutely.
I like her just kicking it backas well.
(31:43):
So she wasn't saying, I have allthe answers.
Mm-hmm.
But she was definitely saying weall have a part to play in it.
Mm-hmm.
And so I'm gonna set down thosekind of heavy themes for a
moment and say there there washope and optimism and
recognition in her lifetime.
People saw what she was doing,they liked it.
(32:06):
She did have a great readership.
She was the first sciencefiction author to win the
MacArthur Fellowship Grant,which is cheekily called the
Genius Grant.
She did not like it being calledthat.
Oh, she didn't, I personally,no.
She was like, that's not athing.
Don't be stupid.
But yeah.
But it was though, um, she wasalso given a Nebula Award, which
(32:27):
is.
Unsurprisingly, an award givenfor the outstanding works in
science, fiction and fantasy,and she had a Penn West Lifetime
Achievement Award for her bodyof work.
And I think that continuedpopularity of her books gives
her insights a chance to reachthe people who can still.
(32:48):
Effect change and be the answersand um, okay.
So since ultimately how we liveour personal lives is the most
effective way we can changeanything whatsoever.
Mm-hmm.
I thought we would end on a morepersonal note with some advice.
From the lovely Octavia Butlerwho herself went from being this
(33:10):
shy, dyslexic child to this, shewas dyslexic, power house,
everything else, she wasdyslexic.
Yeah.
And never supported because inthat day, yeah, it wasn't, yeah.
So yeah, she went from shy,awkward childhood to knocking
out these absolute mind,bendingly, accurate.
(33:33):
Fiction works.
Mm-hmm.
They're on the market today andstill doing quite nicely.
Um.
Mm-hmm.
Just because she saw this dumbmovie and thought I could do
better than that.
So, yeah.
Yeah.
And then the converse thing ofdoing the hard work and letting
opportunity find you ready, likeready to roll.
(33:55):
So be ready baby.
Get up at two, get up at two,get that writing done.
Get that thing you love done.
And yeah, in that spirit we havea quote.
We started with a quote andwe'll end with a quote.
Okay.
So if you care to, um, couldyou, could you wrap it up for
us?
Quote, do the thing that youlove and do it as well as you
(34:17):
possibly can and be persistentabout it, unquote.
Oh mate, we need that on at-shirt.
We need that on a diary.
We need some, yeah.
Oh, it is absolute.
Hashtag goals, we.
Respect and admire the hell outof Octavia Butler on that basis
alone.
Let's go do it.
Let's see to it.
(34:37):
I, I think I can't say it betterthan she said it herself, so
that is where we will leave ittoday.
Wow.
Well, thank you.
My gosh.
I feel like I am, boom.
I feel like I've been no sizeweights by that one.
That's, um, I, I'm delighted.
She's, she's so cool.
Mm-hmm.
Who wouldn't wanna talk aboutsci-fi for an hour?
(34:59):
Mm-hmm.
Probably most people, but I, youknow, I'm into it, so like, it's
just, it was my absolutepleasure to be able to do that.
I'm up to Modern Day as well.
2006.
I know a lot has changed.
Simon Aways asks, wonder whatshe'd be like today in today's
climate.
Like, he often asks that aboutthe women that we cover.
And I, she's one who I can see.
(35:21):
Yeah, like you say, call intoarms, like she would, her voice
would be very loud and veryclear, I imagine.
Yeah.
And calm and rational and justlike a parent side of kind of
that parenting style of naturalconsequences where you just say,
well, you could choose to eat anentire pack of Oreos instead of
(35:43):
your dinner, but you probablywon't feel very, you know, she's
just that level-headed.
Facts, not feelings, which is aphrase that's co-opted by some
really gross people.
So I regret having said it, butyeah, like, yeah, I, I really
just admire and respect her sovery much and she would be
(36:04):
amazing to have her insights onwhat's Saul going on now?
Time?
Right.
Oh, well thanks Car.
Thanks so much.
My pleasure.
audio2663295054 (36:21):
Thank you for listening to this episode of She
Changed History.
If you enjoyed it, please like,subscribe and comment below.
Find us on our socials,Facebook, Instagram, and
YouTube.
If you've got any ideas of womenyou'd like us to cover in a
future episode, please commenton the socials or email us at
She Changed history@gmail.com.
So now I've signed up to eight pounds a
month for St.
John's Ambulance, which just,you know, it is valid.
But he, he was preying on thevulnerable, I feel, right thing
wrong reasons.
Oh, I'll give you a piece ofadvice that I was given as a
young girl and it's, it'ssuccinctly pick him in the balls
and run.
I think if you ever feelcornered.
(00:28):
By someone with balls.
Yeah.
Kicking in the balls and runningbecause I misunderstood what he
was.
I was clearly lost and I like,clearly didn't know what I was
doing and he waved me.
That's what he was looking forand I thought, oh brilliant.
You'll be able to tell me whereSoandso is.
And instead I signed up for8,000 month, it was still lost.
What a predator.
I bet they don't even know he'sin there.
(00:51):
Yeah.
And I hate it when they're like,just so you know, I'm valid.
Here's my id.
Here's our website, here'severything.
And that's like the more youtalk about that kind of stuff,
the more it makes me feel like,no, this is, I'm being scammed.
But then I was like, you are inikea.
They wouldn't just let you inikea.
Well, I've been in IKEA and I'msuper shady, so do not take that
as a guarantee quality.
(01:12):
Shall we begin it?
Shall we begin it?
Indeed.
Hi, Karen.
Excellent.
Hi Vicki.
How are you?
Yeah, I'm ready.
I'm, I'm feeling good.
How are you?
Hey, I'm okay.
I'm all right.
I've got spa day Smart.
I'm really looking.
Yay.
And I've got afternoon tea onSunday.
I've got a lush weekend ahead.
(01:34):
So you have earned it by thesound and it start with, which
is always lovely.
Oh, thanks.
Very happy, pleased to begrouped in with the same
category as spa days and creamcheese.
I mean, jeez.
Quite, that's a, a thumbs up anda half.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
I feel like we should trysomething a little bit different
(01:56):
today.
So I'd like to start with aquote.
Um, do you feel, are you readyto begin?
I'm ready.
Absolutely.
Okay.
So here we have an excerpt froma note to self written by
today's subject.
Would you like to read it?
Yes, quote, my books will beread by millions of people.
I will buy a beautiful home inan excellent neighborhood.
(02:19):
I will send poor blackyoungsters to writers'
workshops.
I will help poor blackyoungsters broaden their
horizons.
I will help poor blackyoungsters to go to college.
I will get the best ofhealthcare for my mother and
myself.
I'll hire a car whenever I wantor need to.
I.
I will travel whenever andwherever in the world that I
(02:40):
choose my books will be read bymillions of people.
So be it.
So see it.
Oh, so be it.
See to it.
Thank you.
Well, that's lovely.
I feel like that should be mymorning mantra and I get up.
That's beautiful.
It's a, it's, it's a rallyingcry, isn't it?
(03:00):
Yes.
So you get the energy there.
Think about a shy little girlwho is sidelined in school
because she has thisunrecognized, unsupported
dyslexia.
Growing up to have theself-belief to say those things
and to aspire to be a successfulauthor.
(03:24):
And not only achieving thosegoals, but smashing them, she
being read by millions, uh,being considered the mother of
an entire genre of fiction andhailed as a prophet by people
who live in the age that shewrote about as the future.
(03:44):
So get ready to be inspired tosee new sons and to understand
that the bridge that brings usto our goals is built from
nothing, more or less than hardwork and self-belief.
Meet Octavia Butler.
And today's sources are women'shistory.org.
And.
(04:05):
Author website for OctaviaButler herself, a biography
about her on the National Museumof African American History
articles on NPR and on theCommon Good, and an article on
vulture.com.
So we are going back to 1940s.
(04:28):
We are in California and OctaviaButler.
Grew up black and poor inPasadena.
Legal segregation was dead, butde facto segregation was very
much alive.
So her father worked as a shoeshiner, but died when she was
just three.
(04:49):
And her mother, yeah, her motherwas a working mom and often
working in situations where theywould live in the homes of the
people that they worked.
That she worked for.
So she worked hard andeventually saved up enough to
rent a home for herself andLittle Octavia, but still
(05:11):
working these really demandinghands-on jobs in the homes of
white families.
And Octavia had that kind of,housing instability.
In addition to that, she wasjust this like tall, awkward kid
who didn't really find it easyto fit in or to make friends.
(05:33):
Okay.
And she sort of said I waslonely, but when I wrote I
wasn't.
So, it was a resource for her.
And she loved animals, she lovedhorses, she loved reading books.
She apparently would sit on her.
Grandmother's porch on thechicken farm and dream up these
(05:53):
stories about animals.
And when she could, she wouldescape to the local library
where she would love to readscience fiction and comic books
and other work that just lit herimagination up and gave her
this.
Escape from her awkwardness,from the kind of drudgery that
she saw as adult life and theinsecurity that she must have
(06:17):
felt.
Yeah.
Books are so special, aren'tthey?
They really are.
When you are lonely.
Books are just, yeah.
And the radio actually, I alwaysthink that about the radio, that
it's really good company andwe're so lucky to have access to
like, what if that librarywasn't there?
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
Yeah.
That such an important point.
(06:39):
And you know, in a time, well,in all times, I suppose when
there's such a competition for.
Cash resources.
They always seem under threat aswell, don't they?
Libraries and radios.
Yeah.
It's like an easy cut, butdevastating to people's lives,
so, yeah.
So we've got, um, Octavia,little Octavia and one day, I
(07:02):
think she's about maybe about 11years old, she's taken to see
this movie called Devil Girlfrom Mars, which doesn't sound
amazing.
It's worse than it sounds.
No, and it's so bad that Octaviakind of realizes two things.
One, somebody got paid forwriting that nonsense and two,
(07:24):
damn she could do better.
So she decides her path is set.
She is going to be a sciencefiction writer, so right.
We're gonna do this, but it wasinspiring.
But in like the completeopposite way in what they want,
the worst way.
But sometimes that's a greatthing where you're just like,
well, geez, if that's all ittakes, I've definitely got that,
(07:44):
that in my locker.
If they do it.
Yeah.
Like absolutely.
Why can't I?
So we're gonna now like zipahead, we're gonna skim over
school, school, school, teens,early adulthood.
And since we are both intoself-development, all that sort
of thing, I thought it would bekind of fun to dip into the how
of Octavia Butler's work lifeand how she got to the point in
(08:08):
her career where she achievedsome of her goals and was a
published author.
I think it's a great example ofhow relevant she is to our
modern ways of thinking.
So sweet.
I would say, uh, that OctaviaButler is somebody who was a
craftswoman as well as anartist.
So she had these huge, like boltfrom the blue artistic ideas,
(08:32):
but she also just knuckled downand got on with the daily grind
of the job, which, you know.
She's from a lower working classbackground and nothing's handed
to her.
So that is, that is hard.
Specifically after she graduatedfrom high school, she would get
up at 2:00 AM.
(08:53):
Every day to write before work.
And then she would go off and dowhatever job could keep the
lights on without sort of likedraining her mentally or her
creativity.
So her website lists a few ofthe jobs she had as she was a
telemarketer, which I would findquite draining, but fine.
Yeah, sounds right.
She was a dishwasher and thisone I'm feeling like I could do
(09:16):
right now.
She was also a potato chipinspector.
Oh, so there you go.
Be sure.
But yeah, so taste, this is the,this is unclear, but I might
write to them and try to findout, um, at any rate, they're
not like super taxing jobsnecessarily for the mind, but to
get up every day and to have thededication every single day to
(09:39):
get up and write for work.
And then after work, she's goingto these creative writing
groups, creative writingworkshops.
A bit of community college.
So she's just making it happen.
Yeah.
And.
L as luck could have it, one ofthe workshops she attended was,
being taught by an author calledHarlan Ellison, who had this
(10:00):
like, really well establishedtrack record in speculative
fiction, sci-fi screenplays andanthologies.
Whose work she respected and therespect was mutual.
So, oh, he's, yeah, he sawsomething in her, and he's
quoted as saying she could notwrite screenplays, which is what
he was actually teaching in thecourse she attended, but she
(10:24):
could just write, like, he couldsee that she was really
skillful.
Okay.
So not necessarily, and that'sanother important lesson, isn't
it?
That.
Um, you're not gonna be able tospecialize in everything.
Yeah, but that doesn't mean thatyou can't do the, I'm also ing
holding as well, isn't it?
Like, don't, if you don't fit inone hole, that's fine.
Like there's a gazillion otherholes you can fit in.
(10:46):
Like find your tribe, isn't it?
You will find your Yes.
Absolutely.
And sometimes we love somethingand we admire it, so we want to
be able to do it.
But then you realize like,actually that's just not me.
I, I'm more of a consumer ofthat thing than a producer of
that thing.
So I think that must have beenright or Yeah.
Yes, precisely.
(11:08):
So she's good at it.
Just not good at that specificthing.
But he says, I know of aworkshop, called the Clarion
Workshop, which is forspecifically science fiction and
fantasy writers.
And I think you should go.
And apparently he even chuckedsome money into the travel fund
'cause it was all the way acrossthe country.
I think it's in.
(11:28):
In the year she went, I think itwas in Pittsburgh, she's in
California.
There's thousands of miles on aGreyhound bus.
So a lot of money and it's sixweeks long, so she's out of work
for that time.
But damn I just make the pointof.
Like, leave me your job for sixweeks and like,'cause I imagine
she'd have had to quit.
I don't think they'd keep adishwasher post open would they?
(11:50):
For six weeks, right?
No.
And then like that takes guts,doesn't it?
It really does.
And.
Vulnerability.
If you are earning at that leveland you're coming from that
background, you probably havenot got a nest egg to fall back
on.
You're probably kind of livinghand to mouth.
So for her to kind of say, okay,this is important to me.
(12:12):
This isn't in my notes, but justas an aside, she makes this
point.
Uh, she has this aunt whotrained to be a nurse and her
aunt.
Was the first person in thefamily to go to any kind of
formal post high schooleducation, and her aunt was
impressing on her the importanceof, you know, having a trade and
so on and so on.
(12:33):
But Octavia Butler said,actually, the example that I got
was.
You do what you know is rightfor you.
And so for me, that was tofollow my dreams and become a
writer.
So I took the lesson, not in theway she intended.
Yes, because her aunt reallywanted her to learn a trade.
But yeah, anyhow, she had thislike inner funk fire and just
(12:56):
kind of went, went for it.
She went to this workshop bet onherself and had that.
Support of her family.
And she went and she wrote, andshe struggled socially.
It wasn't some sort of likemagical pania that fixed her,
you know, social awkwardness.
And I say fixed her in scarequotes, but you know what I
(13:17):
mean?
She, she went, even though itwas uncomfortable.
Yeah, and it worked because soonafter the workshop and her
completing her associate'sdegree at the City College, she
started selling her stories andwithin 10 years she become
successful enough to be afull-time author, which is Get
Out accomplishment.
(13:38):
She was doing so good.
I haven't heard of her.
Her.
Yeah.
So this is it.
The theme is Hard work support.
Self-belief, most of all.
Hard work.
Um, like she reminds me, there'sa quote that's like, hard work
puts you where good luck canfind you.
And I think that's her vibe.
(14:00):
I love to me.
Love that.
I totally agree with that.
I was discussing with my, um,friends the other week like,
what does look mean to you?
'cause look such a fascinatingconcept.
And we all, there was four of usin the conversation, I think
three or four, and we all hadcompletely different concepts of
what look means.
Like, oh that's reallyinteresting with a pot and then
you get.
Apart for life and then it, youuse it throughout your life,
(14:24):
basically.
Oh, no.
Fine.
Yeah.
So some people use it reallyearly.
Some people get their look lateron in life, but there is like a
set amount and then there was mewho was basically trying to say
that, but I was not saying it aselegantly as like, I kind of
think you make your own look alittle bit and you take your
opportunities and you makeopportunities, which are then
(14:45):
seen as lucky.
Right.
But I.
Basically what she was saying.
What did she say?
Hard work puts you where?
Good look, I think it was.
That's, that's it.
Yeah.
That's much more elegant than myrumbling.
Well, it's three Proseccos downlate at night, but like Yeah,
it's, I believe that Igenuinely, yeah.
Well, if you liked that one, Ithink you're gonna like this
one.
Okay.
I've got another quote for youhere, which I think aligns to
(15:08):
what we, you were just sayingthere, and probably is quite
useful to anybody who works inany kind of creative way.
Quote first, forget inspiration.
Habit is more dependable.
Habit will sustain you whetheryou are inspired or not.
Habit will help you finish andpolish your stories.
Inspiration won't.
Habit is persistence inpractice, unquote.
(15:29):
Yes.
This is like the 5:00 AM clubthing, isn't it?
It's the 2:00 AM club thing.
It's the 2:00 AM clubconsistency.
I've never heard of the 2:00 AMclub.
When she said 2:00 AM I waslike, my God.
But I guess she was startingwork at six or something, wasn't
she?
Right.
Not nine.
Yeah.
I think that's consistency,baby.
That's it.
Exactly.
Um, and to just to bring thatkind of real work a day, getting
(15:53):
on with it work ethic to whatcould be quite an airy fairy
thing to be a creative.
Amazing.
So one of the habits that workedfor Octavia, as we saw in the
opening is to write notes toherself.
And these kind of like.
Vision boards that outlined hermission and how she's gonna
achieve it.
The one at the start was fromone of her notebooks, and I feel
(16:16):
like if she was alive today, shewould be the kind of person who
have the, would have this likeprivate insta that she was the
only follower on.
And she would have all theseideas she wrote in colorful pens
and she just gave herself theselovely little pep talks.
And I've, I've put a couple ofthem here, but yeah, the one,
the one thing that's comingthrough is she's, she's
(16:38):
reminding herself constantly howto write beautifully and
persuasively.
I love the final one.
It says, no entertainment onearth can match a good story,
compellingly told, and this issomething I, I.
Just love.
No matter what you're doing, ifyou're playing a video game, if
you're listening to a podcast,if you are, telling your friends
(17:02):
an anecdote at a party, that'swhat it boils down to.
You're just trying tocompellingly tell that story.
So all those notes are in theHuntington Library in San
Marino, California, where theyhave a collection of our stuff
that you can see.
A lot of them are availableonline it just shows that
journaling's been forever.
Like it's not a cool millennialthing or like a Gen Z thing,
(17:25):
where we bullet journal now andwe, you know, it's been going
on.
This teaching yourself andmanifesting with yourself and
affirming yourself has beengoing on for actual decades.
I dunno, man.
I think this might be an exampleof her being a front runner.
'cause she, oh her, her fictionis all about predicting the
future.
(17:45):
So I just took it to be that shewas just ahead of the curve.
That she was completely, she waspart of this new modern.
But that's'cause I'm an oldfuddyduddy who doesn't do any of
those things.
So what we're, what we'rebuilding towards is a person who
is self-motivated andself-determined and maybe has
(18:08):
felt like enough of an outsiderwhere she was quite happy to
follow her own compass and.
It fits because I think being awriter is quite an isolating job
and Oh my gosh.
Yeah.
It takes a person, it's aspecial person who can do that
job and who can do it in theface of rejection well and doing
(18:28):
well, like, and yeah, not beingfunny.
Like the amount of celebritiesthat get book deals nowadays and
you're just like.
Are you though?
Are you a true writer?
Deep down.
And they might be.
They might be, but it's, thenumbers don't stack.
Yeah, that's, I wanna givepeople the benefit of the doubt,
but it, I know, I know, I agree.
(18:48):
Yeah, there's some real, butthen you see all this effort
getting up at 2:00 AM practicingand workshops and it's like,
have those, have, has ReverendColes has whoever been to.
Or if they are, they justmaking, hey, you know, which I
don't know.
We probably won't be able to putthis in the podcast, but it's
just what I think.
(19:10):
No, I, I fully appreciate whatyou're saying and it is, I'm
always slightly looking a scanat anything that's published by
anyone whose name I know becauseyou're like, if you put a random
name on this, is it still makingit through those gates?
Probably not.
Probably, uh.
So, yeah, I, I hear you.
Right, so she is somebody who iswilling to get to work in a
(19:34):
field where there are really noexamples of someone like herself
working.
She's Oh, yes.
True.
She's very bold.
And when interviewers asked herhow the courage to begin, she,
gave a really good answer.
I've got a quote there.
If you give it.
Uh, when asked how she set outto become a science fiction
(19:54):
writer, when there were so fewexamples of black women working
in the genre, Butler said shenever doubted her abilities.
I assumed that I could do it.
She said I wasn't being brave oreven thoughtful.
I wanted it and I assumed Icould have it, unquote.
Oh, yes.
More of this.
Please, Karl.
Brilliant.
I want more issues in the world.
(20:15):
So inspiring.
Yeah.
So yeah, her intention is towrite science fiction.
It's nothing more or lessrevolutionary and act Yeah.
Than assuming that her work wasjust as legitimate as anyone
else's.
Yeah.
Which seems self-evident, exceptit wasn't published work in
science fiction in specific hadthen and still has got a strong
(20:37):
skew towards publishing whitemale authors.
So for her to get out there anddo it was actually
extraordinarily impactful.
I.
I hate that word, but I've justsaid it.
So there we are, blah, blah,blah.
Um, it had a big impact.
So women in science is stillrare as obviously it's getting
(20:58):
better and better because of allthe, work that's being done
around it, but that I imaginethey're still a minority in that
field and Absolutely.
Yeah.
And that's in reality, let alonein fiction.
Yeah.
That's amazing.
Live it.
Well, she took charge of her owncareer and thought, I'm going to
do it.
I don't care if anybody thinks Ican or should.
I just am.
(21:19):
And it was a fulcrum point tothis new.
Sub genre of science fictioncalled Afrofuturism.
Um, I'm putting you to worktoday.
There's another quote here ifyou'd like to give it that
defines Afrofuturism.
Yes.
Quote, Afrofuturism, which yousee LA defines as a wide ranging
(21:44):
social, political and artisticmovement that dares to imagine a
world where African descendedpeoples and their cultures play
a central role in.
The creation of that world.
Good.
Get that.
So she, she moved the ball downthe field for this.
Okay.
And something to consider inCounterpoint is that Butler
(22:06):
herself is quoted as saying, Idon't recall ever having wanted
to be a black woman fictionwriter.
I wanted to be a writer.
Mm-hmm.
I'm kind of anxious to explorethat because I don't wanna
minimize the importance of whatshe did for diversity of point
of view, or to imply that thatwasn't what she was aiming at or
(22:29):
to, kind of minimize thenecessity.
I think the point that she'smaking is that she refuted the
assumption that there's such athing as a standard science
fiction writer and that she's anexception.
So.
The idea that she's other isfundamentally flawed.
Yeah.
And all points of view should beunderstood to be equally valid.
(22:52):
Of course, African descendedpeople and culture play a
central role in the world.
Any suggestion to the contrary,she just shoes away.
Which is so refreshing and so,um.
I want a different word thaninspirational, but so, um,
self-assured, isn't it?
Yeah, it is.
(23:12):
The word that kept coming to mymind was dignify.
Like she is just a person of somuch dignity and just.
I'm not even gonna dignify that.
I'm not indulging the viewpointthat my point of view isn't
worthwhile.
And so I'll throw this quote outthere that she said about her
own writing as a female and anAfrican American, I wrote myself
(23:36):
into the world.
I wrote myself into the present,the future, and the past.
Lived experience of the worldwasn't there in fiction and she
made them appear and the kindof, probably the best example.
Or the most familiar example ofthat is a book she wrote called
Kindred and that is overtlyabout race.
And she uses a story about timetravel to engage with that and
(24:01):
takes a modern in her time,African American woman and
hurtles her back into AntebellumSouthern Maryland.
And she sees the lives of herenslaved ancestors and she has
to kind of adapt to survive.
So.
It's taking on race in a reallyovert way.
(24:21):
Mm-hmm.
But throughout her work, Butlerhas protagonists and bit part
players who are black and justlive in their lives and doing
it.
Babe, just, just part of the Iknow, because why not?
Yeah, exactly.
Because that is one of the waysin which her work.
Is relevant and real becausethat's what life is actually
(24:44):
like.
It's not just this weirdhomogenous space with white
dudes.
It's everybody out there workingtogether and doing stuff.
So writing herself in thepicture Butler by intention or
by accident, made her writing somuch more real.
So.
There.
We've got her not dignifying,ignorance and prejudice with any
(25:08):
kind of legitimacy, and thenhaving the discipline to just
sit down and absolutely work atit.
And so that's two of the threelegged stool of her career, that
dignity, that hard work.
The third part.
Is magic.
It's just vision.
And that is where we get to whyscience fiction was kind of the
(25:32):
right choice for her.
So.
Like you said, there's so muchawful writing in the world.
Devil Girl from Mars wasn't theonly, you know, bad bit of
writing she will have comeacross, so it can't just have
been, I can do better.
That drove her to that genre.
But she does say in the quotehere why science fiction
(25:54):
particularly appealed to her.
It was so wide open that it gaveher a chance to comment on every
aspect of humanity.
There are no closed doors and norequired formulas.
You can go anywhere with it.
Yeah, and I was just thinkingabout the context of where we're
in.
Is this like the 1960s?
Yeah.
Uh, sixties and seventies.
(26:16):
I think she's, putting theseworks out.
Yeah.
So what?
What does that mean in terms oflike science fiction as a whole?
Like it must be quite a goldenage, I imagine.
I think that TV shows like StarTrek and Battle Star Galactica
lost in Space and movies likeStar Wars really brought it in.
(26:38):
It was a hot property kind ofculturally.
There were all theseanthologies.
Planet of the A.
Yeah.
All of that stuff is out thereand it's hugely mass market
appealing in the United Statesat that time, probably in the UK
as well.
So she's joining a movement inits moment and she's bringing
(27:01):
something new to the table.
She took it, took that kind oflike openness of it.
To show near future versions ofAmerican society and the world
that we're familiar withsometimes.
Mm-hmm.
And where it goes, if it stayson the trajectory it's on.
(27:22):
And she o openly says, thesewere cautionary tales and she
got it right.
So often.
You might wanna have a sip ofwater.
There's a quote here from theNew York Times about, the first
book of a trilogy, which neverended up being completed.
She only ever got to write twoof them, but it's a book called
Parable of the Sower and the NewYork Times here talks about, I.
(27:45):
This book, if you would give usthis.
Mm-hmm.
Enormous quote.
Uh, quite the effects of climatechange are reshaping America.
Those with sufficient resourcesretreat inside protective
communities.
Those, oh my god.
Those with even greaterresources.
Finance and exploratory MarsMission, presumably an attempt
to one day escape her'sdestabilization.
(28:08):
In the political realm, apopulist presidential candidate,
denounces clothes made byscientists promising the
electorate that he's going toreturn us to the glory wealth,
an order of the 20th centuryunquote.
My God, you are joking.
How eerie is it to read that?
(28:31):
So that is what she imagined.
31 years before, Fun.
It was published in 1993 and asa prophet, she's nailing it.
Yes.
Also, the other thing that thishas made me think of, sorry, is,
you know, have you seen inbookshops sometimes they have a
section called.
(28:52):
It's a cautionary tale, not astretch manual, but yeah.
The Margaret Atwood, um, yeah,yeah, yeah, yeah.
Handmade tale.
But she should be right there.
It sounds like this trilogyshould be there.
I think it often is.
Um, especially because it dealswith a lot of ecological issues
that Yeah.
She called it climate change 31years ago.
(29:12):
The.
First time this book appeared inthe Times bestseller list was in
2020.
Ah.
And people were reading it inCovid Times, of course.
And those, those sort ofprescient cautionary notes.
I wonder if Butler who sadly haddied by then, died back in 2006.
(29:34):
Might have been her reaction.
Might have been, I'm sorry.
To have been Right.
But I'm really glad that peopleare listening now.
Mm.
Um, so yeah, I, I just, I cannotsay enough, having done this
research, I've left out as muchas I could.
I really have.
(29:54):
You just had the wind knockedout of you again and again by
how on the nose She is.
Wow.
So there's like an interviewNice intellectual next level,
right?
Yeah.
Just being able to kind of seewhere.
The road is leading in which waythe wind is like society.
Wind is blowing.
Yeah, exactly.
And imagine where we're going.
(30:15):
And you know, there's like aquote from her in 2005 talking
about how she's unsettled tosee, we're now at a point where
we're more interested inbuilding prisons and schools and
libraries.
And she talks about where thatleads and.
It's here, this, this, thiscurrent sort of like swing to
populism and so on and so on.
All of these things that she'slike, uh, hey guys, this could
(30:39):
be what's happening.
It's what's happening.
So you, you come away fromreading her fiction thinking
about it for a very long time,and I don't think you can give a
higher compliment to a personwhose central concern was to
kind of point at.
Likely negative outcomes and tryto warn people.
(31:01):
Mm-hmm.
So for all of that, somebody inone of her workshops, asked her
how to end the suffering in theworld, which was a theme in so
many of her books.
It is, you know, a big ask, Seeall those problems that you've
flagged up, what would you likeus to do about them?
Uh, and this is what she said,uh, quote, there's no single
(31:22):
answer that will solve all ofour future problems.
There is no magic bullet.
Instead, there are thousands ofanswers.
At least you can be one of themif you choose to be unquote
correct.
I mean, Greta Berg wasn't even.
A glimmer, I imagine, in herparents' eye at this point and
Yeah, absolutely.
I like her just kicking it backas well.
(31:43):
So she wasn't saying, I have allthe answers.
Mm-hmm.
But she was definitely saying weall have a part to play in it.
Mm-hmm.
And so I'm gonna set down thosekind of heavy themes for a
moment and say there there washope and optimism and
recognition in her lifetime.
People saw what she was doing,they liked it.
(32:06):
She did have a great readership.
She was the first sciencefiction author to win the
MacArthur Fellowship Grant,which is cheekily called the
Genius Grant.
She did not like it being calledthat.
Oh, she didn't, I personally,no.
She was like, that's not athing.
Don't be stupid.
But yeah.
But it was though, um, she wasalso given a Nebula Award, which
(32:27):
is.
Unsurprisingly, an award givenfor the outstanding works in
science, fiction and fantasy,and she had a Penn West Lifetime
Achievement Award for her bodyof work.
And I think that continuedpopularity of her books gives
her insights a chance to reachthe people who can still.
(32:48):
Effect change and be the answersand um, okay.
So since ultimately how we liveour personal lives is the most
effective way we can changeanything whatsoever.
Mm-hmm.
I thought we would end on a morepersonal note with some advice.
From the lovely Octavia Butlerwho herself went from being this
(33:10):
shy, dyslexic child to this, shewas dyslexic, power house,
everything else, she wasdyslexic.
Yeah.
And never supported because inthat day, yeah, it wasn't, yeah.
So yeah, she went from shy,awkward childhood to knocking
out these absolute mind,bendingly, accurate.
(33:33):
Fiction works.
Mm-hmm.
They're on the market today andstill doing quite nicely.
Um.
Mm-hmm.
Just because she saw this dumbmovie and thought I could do
better than that.
So, yeah.
Yeah.
And then the converse thing ofdoing the hard work and letting
opportunity find you ready, likeready to roll.
(33:55):
So be ready baby.
Get up at two, get up at two,get that writing done.
Get that thing you love done.
And yeah, in that spirit we havea quote.
We started with a quote andwe'll end with a quote.
Okay.
So if you care to, um, couldyou, could you wrap it up for
us?
Quote, do the thing that youlove and do it as well as you
(34:17):
possibly can and be persistentabout it, unquote.
Oh mate, we need that on at-shirt.
We need that on a diary.
We need some, yeah.
Oh, it is absolute.
Hashtag goals, we.
Respect and admire the hell outof Octavia Butler on that basis
alone.
Let's go do it.
Let's see to it.
(34:37):
I, I think I can't say it betterthan she said it herself, so
that is where we will leave ittoday.
Wow.
Well, thank you.
My gosh.
I feel like I am, boom.
I feel like I've been no sizeweights by that one.
That's, um, I, I'm delighted.
She's, she's so cool.
Mm-hmm.
Who wouldn't wanna talk aboutsci-fi for an hour?
(34:59):
Mm-hmm.
Probably most people, but I, youknow, I'm into it, so like, it's
just, it was my absolutepleasure to be able to do that.
I'm up to Modern Day as well.
2006.
I know a lot has changed.
Simon Aways asks, wonder whatshe'd be like today in today's
climate.
Like, he often asks that aboutthe women that we cover.
And I, she's one who I can see.
(35:21):
Yeah, like you say, call intoarms, like she would, her voice
would be very loud and veryclear, I imagine.
Yeah.
And calm and rational and justlike a parent side of kind of
that parenting style of naturalconsequences where you just say,
well, you could choose to eat anentire pack of Oreos instead of
(35:43):
your dinner, but you probablywon't feel very, you know, she's
just that level-headed.
Facts, not feelings, which is aphrase that's co-opted by some
really gross people.
So I regret having said it, butyeah, like, yeah, I, I really
just admire and respect her sovery much and she would be
(36:04):
amazing to have her insights onwhat's Saul going on now?
Time?
Right.
Oh, well thanks Car.
Thanks so much.
My pleasure.
audio2663295054 (36:21):
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Changed History.
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