Celebrating Octavia
Story and photos courtesy Krystal Ruiz/LAPL
The Los Angeles Public Library celebrated the award-winning science fiction author, Octavia E. Butler, at the Parables Convening: An Octavia E. Butler Celebration. The public event was hosted at Central Library and aimed to honor Butler’s legacy on the day of her birthday, June 22. The event also happened to align with the setting for Butler’s novel, Parable of the Sower, which was set in the summer of 2024. People from all across the City gathered inside the library’s Taper Auditorium to listen in on a discussion with a stellar panel featuring author Lynell George, brand founder Schessa Garbutt, educator Rabiya Kassam-Clay and Nikki High, the owner of local bookstore, Octavia’s Bookshelf.
More than 300 event-goers also had the opportunity to partake in book club discussions, tabletop roleplay games and visit the Octavia Lab to print silk screen designs on totes and posters with the help of community organization, Color Compton.
Octavia E. Butler (1947-2006) was a writer, creator, world-builder and genius who made room in the white male dominated science fiction world for works with African American female leads. Butler’s ability to be creative and to be continually inspired to create was deeply tied to her library habits. Libraries helped shape Butler into a writer and her relationship with the Central Library in particular, served as an environment that allowed her to flourish.
Butler’s legacy is preserved by the creation of the Octavia Lab at Central Library, featured on the August 2023 cover of Alive! The Octavia Lab is a testament that we too can be creative, can dream and can create works at the Central Library, a place she considered her second home.
“We’re all capable of climbing so much higher than we usually permit ourselves to suppose.” – Octavia E. Butler
Congratulations to the Library staff that organized the celebration: Lauren Kratz, Richard Acero, Aldrich Linton, Miguel Vargas and Friend of the Octavia Lab Rabiya Kassam-Clay.
