Boing Boing: RIP, Octavia Butler, "genius" science fiction writer

Boing Boing: RIP, Octavia Butler, "genius" science fiction writer: "

Octavia Butler, the brilliant science fiction writer, reportedly died on Saturday following a fall that was followed by fatal bleeding in her skull gave her a fatal concussion. Butler was the incredible writer who was the first genre author to win the MacArthur Foundation's 'Genius' grant. She was the first prominent African-American woman in the field, and her novels and short stories were an inspiration to a generation of writers of all backgrounds and both sexes (I was ready to give up writing after a five-year bout of writers' block in my mid-twenties when I read the introduction to her short story collection in which she recounted her own block and decided to keep trying). I recently reviewed her wonderful novel Fledgling here, a vampire book that, like all of Butler's work, was a disturbing, light-touch allegory about race and sex politics skinned with a fast-moving, heart-wrenching storyline.

"

(Via BoingBoing.)