I am very saddened by this… she was one of my favourite sci-fi writers next to Nalo….
Octavia Butler, 1947-2006: Sci-fi writer a gifted pioneer in white, male domain
By JOHN MARSHALLP-I BOOK CRITIC
Her father was a shoeshine man who died when she was a child, her mother was a maid who brought her along on jobs, yet Octavia Butler rose from these humble beginnings to become one of the country’s leading writers – a female African American pioneer in the white, male domain of science fiction.
Butler, 58, died after falling and striking her head Friday on a walkway outside her home in Lake Forest Park. The reclusive writer, who moved to Seattle in 1999 from her native Southern California, was a giant in stature (she was 6 feet tall by age 15) and in accomplishment.
She remains the only science fiction writer to receive one of the vaunted “genius grants” from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, a hard-earned $295,000 windfall in 1995 that followed years of poverty and personal struggles with shyness and self-doubt.
“People may call these ‘genius grants,’ ” Butler said in a 2004 interview with the Seattle P-I, “but nobody made me take an IQ test before I got mine. I knew I’m no genius.”
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