I'm Paris Jackson in the Cascade PBS newsroom.

Welcome to The Newsfeed.

February is Black History Month, and today we're focusing on a literary legend who reshaped science fiction writing.

The mother of Afrofuturism, Octavia Butler wrote prolific novels such as "Kindred," "The Parable of the Sower" and the Patternist series.

She also wrote her final novel, "Fledgling," in her home in Lake Forest Park, where she lived for the last seven years of her life.

Hugo and Nebula awards were among her accolades, and in 1995, she was the first science fiction writer to receive the MacArthur Genius Fellowship.

She was known for centering Black women in her writing because she didn't see herself in others' writings.

I was in the final class that Octavia Butler taught at Clarion West.

My dad had given me her books when I was in very formative years, and I just really had never seen another Black woman writing science fiction and fantasy in that way, and was really inspired by her to write.

Her writing created new worlds while providing incisive commentary on our own.

Her work seems to have foretold the future that we're living in, which is, I think, just a result of her being aware of her present moment and projecting that into an extreme.

What happens if this goes even farther?

It's a little eerie to see the world now and to have read her work 20 years ago, and kind of see how so much of it has played out but I think it's also really hopeful because she wrote a lot about community, and the people who weren't the big change makers, but who managed to make a difference Butler's legacy lives on well past her death in her home north of Seattle.

In 2023, the City of Lake Forest Park dedicated a street as Octavia Butler Avenue.

I'm Paris Jackson.

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