When the novelist Octavia E. Butler entered a room, you felt it. Tall, commanding, yet soft-spoken, the author's presence inspired as much comfort as attention; you couldn’t help but be enraptured by her. The first and only time I met her was on a rainy afternoon in 2005. She was in Toronto promoting Fledgling, a brilliant novel about a young racialized vampire who challenges the white supremacy of the wider vampire community. I had been granted an hour's time to interview not only my favorite author, but the dreamer who inspired me to become a speculative fiction writer and artist. What was supposed to be an hour turned into an entire day in her bountiful presence.
By the time we met, Butler had produced all of the 15 novels and several short story collections that would cement her legacy as a towering figure not just in the realm of science fiction and fantasy — her specialty — but in 20th-century American literature writ large. Some of her most beloved works include Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents, two books in what was to be a trilogy (with the unwritten Parable of the Trickster) about a disabled Black heroine who builds community in in an apocalyptic, future-set Los Angeles and northern Turtle Island. Another of her classics is Kindred, a time-traveling story depicting life on a slave labor plantation alongside the challenges of being a Black woman in a mixed relationship in the 1970s, an adaptation of which arrives on Hulu this week.
Interest in Butler's books has skyrocketed in recent years, spurred in large part by the recognition of her prophetic faculties. Black readers in particular have found a treasure trove of narratives about our communities stretching into the future. Whether she was or wasn’t part of the queer community herself is uncertain, but her influence on a generation of queer people — and queer writers — is undeniable. Even back in 2005, more than a decade before her popular resurgence (as evidenced by her reaching the New York Times Best Seller List 14 years after her passing), Butler was a hero to me. Being in her presence felt like a dream. Hearing her tell stories in her deep and beautiful voice was enough to inspire my creative practice for decades to follow.
When the day of our meeting arrived, I ran warm water over my wrists, an old trick I’d learned in the hospital for anxiety. I’m a mad artist, and I was in a hard neurodivergent moment as I found my way to the restaurant on King Street, a fancier part of town. I joined Nik Redman, Anjula Gogia, and Rosina Kazi from the Toronto Women’s Bookstore at the table, where together we waited for the author to arrive. After a few minutes of small talk, there she was: Wearing a patterned top in blues and purples, her hair cut in a medium low afro, Butler strode toward us. She introduced herself quietly, sat down, smiled, then immediately started telling stories.
Everything was a story: her journey to the restaurant, her life back in the United States, her research trips to South and Central American rainforests for Lilith's Brood and other books. I found myself transfixed as the author spoke of learning the flora and fauna, how interconnected the lifecycles and systems were in this ecology, and how they inspired the complex worlds of her creation. Matter-of-factly, she added that she’d been studying human systems, too — and that she had a sense we were headed down a dangerous road.
Parable of the Sower, perhaps Butler’s most well-known work, had only been around for a little over a decade — long before 2024, the year in which the novel is set — yet the devastation of her imagination was already coming to pass. In 2022, the barren reality of Butler’s classic reads as eerily prescient, predicting the literal slogans of today's conservative zealots, among other chilling parallels. When asked about her prescience, the author turned to familiar explanations, explaining that, when speculating, she just used simple logic: “If we continued down this road and didn’t address racism, climate, harm reduction, economic injustice, what might happen,” she asked, “where would we be?”
The answer, of course, is here, exactly — devastatingly — where we are.
Preternaturally prophetic as she might have been, one thing Butler couldn’t have fully imagined was how much her writing would be a salve for us who live in the often dismal reality of her dreams. I reread The Parable series every three years, and have done so since the year it came out, in 1993. It’s like a training manual for me — a bold account of activist strategy, with tips for how to survive on the Land if required, which has proven invaluable in my work as an organizer. In many ways, it is inspiring my own book of the living, my own notes of truisms that inspire how I move with strategy as an organizer.
When asked over large plates of pasta if she thought future readers might follow the spiritual and tactical guidance of texts like Earthseed and the Parable series, Butler demurred. The ideas contained within Earthseed, a spiritual practice devised by Butler in the Parable books, were “not comforting enough,” she said, to provide solace during times of distress — key features of most religions. She specified that a God who “was change” wouldn’t provide something to look toward in a scary future. In this projection, Butler was uncharacteristically wrong; today, organizations and communities inspired by Earthseed exist across the world, along with websites designed to help folks live through the precepts of Earthseed.
Butler’s works often engaged dystopia, but the day we spent together was filled with laughter. Desserts came and went. The sunlight had started to ebb when I realized we hadn’t recorded a thing. She had asked that we wait to begin the interview in earnest until she felt warmed up, comfortable. So I said to her, “Octavia, how are you feeling? Could we make a recording?” She laughed that deep, luxurious laugh and said, “Ooooh, do we have to?”
The conversation ended not long after it began. On record, the author was shy, far removed from the exuberant storyteller she was at lunch — or from her writing voice, for that matter. We wrapped quickly, putting the recorder away after just a few short exchanges. She smiled, visibly relaxing.
When the time came to part ways, we stood up and said our goodbyes. She gave me a hug, and it was as wonderful as you can imagine. She said she wanted to stay in touch and placed a white card with black embossed lettering on it in my hand. In a bolded cursive, the text read, “Octavia E. Butler,” then beneath, “Writer,” plus her information. Octavia E Butler, Writer. It was the most understated way to describe all that she was, all that she would be to all of us. So unassuming. So her.
I never got to use the contact information, as Butler passed just a year after we met. Still, our time together, brief though it might have been, felt magical and expansive. We built a connection that opened a window into my own future, planting the seeds for my own career exploring future realities as a writer.
I did get to see Butler once more. Her tour included an event in Toronto the day after our interview. It rained buckets that evening. About 100 of us sat squeezed into the university theater listening to author Nalo Hopkinson interview Butler about Fledgling. There was a skylight above the theater, and I remember the sound of the rain pounding the glass as Nalo leaned forward and asked, “So, Octavia, tell us about what happens on page six?”
Tell a story? Octavia was in her element. Eyes sparkling like they did that day in the restaurant, Butler took a deep breath and began.
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