Hearing her tell stories in her deep and beautiful voice was enough to inspire my creative practice for decades to follow.
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. 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. Black readers in particular have found a treasure trove of narratives about our communities stretching into the future. Interest in Butler's books has skyrocketed in recent years, spurred in large part by the recognition of her prophetic faculties. 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. 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.
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.
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