Octavia E. Butler

Octavia Estelle Butler was an American science fiction and speculative fiction author who won several awards for her works, including the Hugo, Locus and Nebula awards. In 1995 she became the first science fiction writer to receive a MacArthur Fellowship. Born in Pasadena, California, she wrote fiction that explored power, race, gender and survival. She was raised by her widowed mother and was extremely shy as a child, finding an outlet in reading fantasy at the library and in writing. She began writing science fiction as a teenager and was encouraged to attend the Clarion Workshop, which focused on science fiction.