Editing Octavia E. Butler (section)

== Rise to success ==
{{quote box
| width = 25em
| quote = Who am I? I am a forty-seven-year-old writer who can remember being a ten-year-old writer and who expects someday to be an eighty-year-old writer. I am also comfortably asocial—a hermit. ... 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.
| salign = left
| source = —Octavia E. Butler, reading her description of herself included in ''Parable of the Sower'', during a 1994 interview with Jelani Cobb
}}

Although Butler's mother wanted her to become a secretary in order to have a steady income,<ref name=Rowell /> Butler continued to work at a series of [[Temporary work|temporary jobs]]. She preferred less demanding work that would allow her to get up at two or three in the morning to write. Success continued to elude her. She styled her stories after the white-and-male-dominated science fiction she had grown up reading.<ref name=EAAW /><ref name=PosObs /> She enrolled at [[California State University, Los Angeles]], but switched to taking writing courses through [[University of California, Los Angeles|UCLA]] Extension.

During the Open Door Workshop of the [[Writers Guild of America West]], a program designed to mentor minority writers, her writing impressed one of the teachers, noted science-fiction writer [[Harlan Ellison]]. He encouraged her to attend the six-week [[Clarion Workshop|Clarion Science Fiction Writers Workshop]] in [[Clarion, Pennsylvania]]. There, Butler met the Black science fiction writer [[Samuel R. Delany]], who became a longtime friend.<ref>{{cite news | last= Davis | first=Marcia | url= https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/27/AR2006022701585_pf.html | title=Octavia Butler, A Lonely, Bright Star Of the Sci-Fi Universe | work=The Washington Post' | date=February 28, 2006}}</ref> She also sold her first stories: "Childfinder" to Ellison, for his unpublished anthology ''[[The Last Dangerous Visions]]'' (eventually published in ''[[Unexpected Stories]]'' in 2014<ref>{{Cite news|last=Bradford|first=K. Tempest|date=2014-07-10|title=An 'Unexpected' Treat For Octavia E. Butler Fans|language=en|work=NPR|url=https://www.npr.org/2014/07/10/320746103/an-unexpected-treat-for-octavia-e-butler-fans|access-date=2021-10-15}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=City Lights Bookshop |date=2022 |title=Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical Science Fiction, 1950 to 1986 |url=https://commonslibrary.org/dangerous-visions-and-new-worlds-radical-science-fiction-1950-to-1986/ |website=Commons Social Change Library}}</ref>); and [[Bloodchild and Other Stories#"Crossover"|"Crossover"]] to [[Robin Wilson (author)|Robin Scott Wilson]], the director of the Clarion workshop, who published it in the 1971 Clarion anthology.<ref name="Gant" /><ref name="Pfeiffer" /><ref name="Logan"/><ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.npr.org/2014/07/10/320746103/an-unexpected-treat-for-octavia-e-butler-fans |title=An 'Unexpected' Treat for Octavia E. Butler Fans |last=Tempest Bradford |first=K. |work=NPR |access-date=August 26, 2018 |language=en |author-link=K. Tempest Bradford}}</ref>

For the next five years, Butler worked on the novels that became known as the [[Patternist series]]: ''[[Patternmaster]]'' (1976), ''[[Mind of My Mind]]'' (1977), and ''[[Survivor (Octavia Butler novel)|Survivor]]'' (1978). In 1978, she was able to stop working at temporary jobs and live on her income from writing.<ref name=Pfeiffer /> She took a break from the Patternist series to research and write a stand-alone novel, ''[[Kindred (novel)|Kindred]]'' (1979). She finished the Patternist series with ''[[Wild Seed (novel)|Wild Seed]]'' (1980) and ''[[Clay's Ark]]'' (1984).

Butler's rise to prominence began in 1984 when "[[Speech Sounds]]" won the [[Hugo Award]] for Short Story and, a year later, "[[Bloodchild and Other Stories#"Bloodchild"|Bloodchild]]" won the Hugo Award, the [[Locus Award]], and the ''[[DNA Publications|Science Fiction Chronicle]]'' Reader Award for Best Novelette. In the meantime, Butler traveled to the [[Amazon rainforest]] and the [[Andes]] to do research for what would become the ''Xenogenesis'' trilogy: ''Dawn'' (1987), ''Adulthood Rites'' (1988), and ''Imago ''(1989).<ref name=Pfeiffer /> These stories were republished in 2000 as the collection ''[[Lilith's Brood]]''.

During the 1990s, Butler completed the novels that strengthened her fame as a writer: ''[[Parable of the Sower (novel)|Parable of the Sower]]'' (1993) and ''[[Parable of the Talents (novel)|Parable of the Talents]]'' (1998). In addition, in 1995, she became the first science-fiction writer to be awarded a [[John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation]] [[MacArthur Fellows Program|fellowship]], an award that came with a prize of $295,000.<ref name="Holden">Holden, Rebecca J, and Nisi Shawl. ''Strange Matings: Science Fiction, Feminism, African American Voices, and Octavia E. Butler''. Seattle, WA: Aqueduct Press, 2013.</ref><ref>Fry, Joan. "Congratulations! You've Just Won $295,000: An Interview with Octavia Butler." ''Poets & Writers Magazine'' (March/April 1997).</ref>

In 1999, after her mother's death, Butler moved to [[Lake Forest Park, Washington]]. ''The Parable of the Talents'' had won the [[Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association|Science Fiction Writers of America]]'s [[Nebula Award]] for Best Novel, and she had plans for four more Parable novels: ''Parable of the Trickster'', ''Parable of the Teacher'', ''Parable of Chaos'', and ''Parable of Clay''. However, after several failed attempts to begin ''The Parable of the Trickster'', she decided to stop work in the series.<ref name=Mehaffy>Butler, Octavia E. {{"'}}Radio Imagination': Octavia Butler on the Politics of Narrative Embodiment." Interview with Marilyn Mehaffy and Ana Louise Keating. ''MELUS'' 26.1 (2001): 45–76. {{JSTOR|3185496}}. {{doi|10.2307/3185496}}.</ref> 

In later interviews, Butler explained that the research and writing of the Parable novels had overwhelmed and depressed her, so she had shifted to composing something "lightweight" and "fun" instead. This became her last book, the science-fiction [[Vampire literature|vampire novel]] ''[[Fledgling (Butler novel)|Fledgling]]'' (2005).<ref>Butler, Octavia. [http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/11/158201 "Science Fiction Writer Octavia Butler on Race, Global Warming, and Religion."] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051112234721/http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05%2F11%2F11%2F158201 |date=November 12, 2005 }} Interview by [[Juan Gonzalez (journalist)|Juan Gonzalez]] and [[Amy Goodman]]. ''Democracy Now!'' November 11, 2005.</ref>