Please Read This Determined Note From Octavia Butler to Herself/the Universe

“Since May 2014, the archive has been used nearly 1,300 times—or roughly 15 times per week, on average,” she added.

One particularly poignant item is this page from one of Butler’s notebooks, circa 1988. (After the publication of Kindred, but before Parable of the Sower.) It testifies to frustration and determination:

The photo cuts off, but the note continues:

I will send poor black youngsters to Clarion or other writer’s workshops

I will help poor black youngsters broaden their horizons

I will help poor black youngsters go to college

I will get the best of health care for my mother and myself

I will hire a car whenever I want or need to

I will travel whenever and wherever in the world that I choose

My books will be read by millions of people! So be it! See to it!

From her New York TImes obituary:

“When I began writing science fiction, when I began reading, heck, I wasn’t in any of this stuff I read,” Ms. Butler told The New York Times in 2000. “The only black people you found were occasional characters or characters who were so feeble-witted that they couldn’t manage anything, anyway. I wrote myself in, since I’m me and I’m here and I’m writing.”

In 1995, Butler was the first science fiction author—period—to win a MacArthur genius grant.