Rest easily, Octavia Butler
Seattle-based science fiction writer Octavia Butler died Saturday of what appears to have been a stroke.
Butler, 58, was a Nebula and James Tiptree-award winner, as well as the recipient of a MacArthur Genius Grant, the first genre writer to be so honored. She was one of the first African-American women to make a real mark on the SF literary world. Butler released a new novel just last year, Fledgling, her first in several years.
Online tributes from other writers are pouring in: Steven Barnes, Neil Gaiman, and Cory Doctorow are the ones I’ve seen so far….
EDIT: The Seattle P-I ran a lovely tribute as well.
I saw it in the paper this morning and was shocked and sad.