PASADENA– Telling My Stories: The Pioneering Fiction of Octavia E. Butler

​ Photograph of Octavia E. Butler outside her home in Seattle., HM 80701, Octavia E. Butler correspondence and photographs, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California. PASADENA– Octavia E. Butler was the first female African-American writer to make science fiction her career. A shy, only child from Pasadena, she dreamed of ordinary people in extraordinary worlds, and extraordinary people in ordinary worlds, and put them on the page. Her stories brought the voice of women of color to a genre traditionally dominated by white men. That powerful voice tackled issues, not just about race, but themes that continue to resonate with a wide audience: power, identity, gender, class, the environment, and what it means to be human. Join Natalie Russell, Assistant Curator of literary manuscripts at the Huntington Library and curator of the recent Huntington exhibition Telling My Stories: The Pioneering Fiction of Octavia E. Butler, for this lecture in celebration of Women’s History Month and in conjunction with the new exhibition Dreaming the Universe: The Intersection of Science, Fiction, & Southern California. Tickets include entrance to the galleries starting at 5:00 pm and a wine and cheese reception. Tickets: Members $10; General $15. Event Posting on Pasadena Museum of History Site: https://pasadenahistory.org/events-overview/events-calendar/octavia-butler/ Purchase Tickets: https://octaviabutlerlecture.brownpapertickets.com/ This program is supported by California Humanities through an Humanities for All Project Grant.