Catching Up With Octavia’s Prescience

Octavia E. Butler: Mural detail by Roberto Quintana

OCTAVIA IS everywhere.

Last Saturday, I was driving back across town after a book group conversation in Venice with the writer Dana Johnson. Our topic was Butler’s writing life. Minutes after I said my goodbyes and pulled away, I stopped at red light I looked up to see aa huge billboard advertising the new Kindred limited series, based on her 1979 novel, which premieres 12/13/2022 on Hulu.

Really, she is everywhere.

This has been a big year for Butler and her vision. I’ve been back in the archives at the Huntington Library researching and crafting new pieces. It’s been good to be immersed again. Even better to hear about people learning more about the writer, her work and her importance.

I”m often asked what is the most interesting or surprising thing I found in the Octavia E. Butler archive. That’s tough to answer. There is so much there that reveals, surprises or amuses—down to the briefest grocery list or research marginalia. Every time I open a notebook or open an old letter, she points me toward something new.

I loved the questions that came up about her during our book group conversation. So many engaged readers. We spoke a lot about how she worked so hard to keep her dreams in focus and dug deep inside to find her strength to persevere when the signals she received offered only contrary messages.

She kept going. Crafting her narratives while at the same time crafting her life.

I wish she were here to see all that her work continues to inspire.

Here’s a little roundup of links to some of the pieces I put together this year about Butler’s world, that help to illuminate the early years and the inspiration she found to keep going:

At the beginning of the year, I worked on this walking map of Butler’s Altadena/Pasadena for the Huntington Library.

In May, for L.A. Parent magazine, I wrote an essay and put together a bullet-point tour of Butler’s life here in Southern California, called, Octavia’s Footsteps.

And, last month, The New York Times‘ published a package, The Visions of Octavia Butler, that I’d been working on along with their Narrative Projects Team for many months. A wonderful experience, working collaboratively with this team—he early brainstorming so very essential to creating an experience—a world. The artist Ainslee Alem Robson not only ushered readers through Butler’s past, but also allowed us to travel through her imagination and into her imagined futures.

I hope you enjoy wandering through these portals into Octavia’s worlds.

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The Books That Made Me

ITS BEEN so very long since I’ve posted here. Apologies.

I’m going to try to do a quick update of some pieces in the next few days.

I always enjoy working with Joe Wakelee-Lynch at LMU magazine. He enjoys knocking ideas around, the more abstract, the better. That gives the writer a lot of room to roam and daydream.

This piece was one of three I pitched. I had some stray seedlings of ideas swirling around in my head. I’d told him about another couple of pieces I’d been working on that felt a bit like archeology. He liked the idea of going back to foundational texts. During the first months of the pandemic, I found myself revisiting certain themes or authors (not necessarily the book that was on the syllabus or the very book I had once spent a summer with), but the re-reading took me back to the person who started out on this journey to be a writer.

It was an important journey and it has been wonderful to be in conversation with other people about their own foundational reading lists, their own “shelves of selves”

You can read the piece here with the most gorgeous illustrations by the amazing artist Melinda Beck. She captured the feeling of what it is to collage together a life of words.

Artwork by Melinda Beck

261 Columbus Avenue

THIS IS probably one of my favorite corners  to stand on on the planet.  Crossing Columbus Avenue, facing City Lights Books & Publishers.

Over the weekend, City Lights’ co-founder, the poet and publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti, marked his 100th birthday and there was much noise and celebration throughout North Beach and beyond.

I have been visiting the store since before college, I would guess. Dragging friends along to wander among the many floors of books, later to pose outside under the signage. But always what was the most magical thing about this place was happening upon its founder, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, walking along Columbus or holding forth in one of the sunny cafes. This store is one of the important points on my personal map. I wouldn’t be who I was without it.

I wrote  piece for the Los Angeles Times Op-Ed section that ran yesterday about both Ferlinghetti and the store’s legacy and impact. You can find it here.

Out and About

TWO EVENTS this week as we ease into the end of the year:

On Thursday evening,  I’ll be heading over to the Pasadena Central Library to join our lively and opinionated crew for a far-ranging conversation. We’ll be discussing and reading from the anthology:  L.A. Baseball: From the Pacific Coast League to the Major Leagues. We get started at 6:30pm in the beautiful Donald R. Wright Auditorium. There will be a reception afterward and we’ll be  signing books.

On Sunday afternoon, Angel City Press will be hosting a holiday party and signing, featuring books honoring Los Angeles’s rich history and culture.

Authors include:

• Bill Bradley, Los Angeles Union Station: Tracks to the Future

• Stephen Gee, Los Angeles City Hall: An American Icon, Iconic Vision: John Parkinson, Architect of Los Angeles, Los Angeles Central Library: A History of its Art and Architecture

• Rachel Surls and Judith Gerber, From Cows to Concrete: The Rise and Fall of Farming in Los Angeles

• Jim Harris, Santa Monica Pier

• Robert Landau, Rock ‘n’ Roll Billboard of the Sunset Strip,  Hollywood Poolside, Tales from The Strip: A Century in the Fast Lane

 

And, I  will be there as well signing and discussing After/Image: Los Angeles Outside the Frame.

Join us from 2 to 4pm at Traxx Restaurant in Union Station (we’ll be gathering inside, adjacent to the concourse) near the Alameda entrance to the terminal).