Octavia E. Butler papers

This collection includes the extensive manuscripts, correspondence, and working materials of American science fiction writer Octavia E. Butler (1947-2006). The collection consists of five series: Manuscripts, Correspondence, Photographs, Subject Files and Research Materials, and Ephemera. There are 392 boxes and 18 oversize folders.

Manuscripts are subdivided into manuscripts by Octavia E. Butler, notecards, diaries, commonplace books, and manuscripts by others. They are arranged alphabetically by author, then title or chronologically within each subseries. Manuscripts by Octavia E. Butler include drafts of all her published works, as well as numerous drafts of complete and partial short stories, one unpublished novel, Blindsight, and several partial drafts of unfinished novels, including Parable of the Trickster. There are also essays and speeches and notes on various research, writing, and domestic subjects. The notecards include both working notes and research notes, as well as notes used for speaking engagaments. The commonplace books are a particularly rich subseries where Octavia compiled working notes for novels and short stories, research, journal entries, notes on daily life and activities, and more. Very little of the contents of the commonplace books are indexed. Manuscripts by others include working copies of short stories from the Clarion workshop of 1970, pre-publication novels, and other short stories, plays, and essays.

Correspondence is arranged alphabetically by the author's last name, then chronologically. Notable correspondents include Harlan Ellison, Robin Scott Wilson, Toni Cade Bambara, Vonda N. McIntyre, Greg Bear, Suzy McKee Charnas, Tananrive Due, Martin Harry Greenberg, and Ursula K. Le Guin. Important personal correspondents include Marjorie Rae Nadler, Leslie Howle, Lynn Marron, Sandra Y. Govan, Frances Deutsch Louis, and Victoria Rose. In particular correspondence to and from Victoria Rose, Marjorie Rae Nadler, and Lynn Marron offers insight into Octavia life and writing early in her career. Octavia's correspondence with her agent at Writer's House, Inc. and her publishers, including Doubleday and Company, inc, Seven Stories Press, Warner Books, St. Martin's Press, and Four Wall Eight Windows, often contains great detail about works in progress and marketing decisions.

Photographs are arranged chronologically in several groups: loose photos (small), loose photos (large), album pages, and photo album. Highlights include photographs from conventions, speaking engagements, and or book signings, numerous photographs of Ocatvia's trip to Peru and the Amazon as part of her research for her Xenogenesis trilogy, and photographs from travels in the Southern California desert and north coast, and Washington.

The subject files represent Octavia's arrangement of clippings by topic. Subject headings are taken from the envelopes Octavia used for filing in most cases, and the arrangement largely follows a numbering scheme devised by Octavia. The original envelopes are included in each folder when present. The research materials are other clippings and subject materials that have been arranged by the cataloger, using Octavia's schema where possible. Together the subject files and research materials are a compendium of topics of interest to Octavia, largely scientific, medical, and anthropological in nature.

The ephemera are arranged in 19 subseries, alphabetically. Notable subseries include Awards, Organizations: MacArthur Foundation, Organizations: Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA), Publicity and Production, Schools (which includes a variety of juvenilia), Speaking Engagements, and Travel.

In addition there are oversize materials, housed separately, for all the above series. Researchers should be sure to search the oversize series for additional materials.

Boxes 355-386 and folder 37 of box 353 were added to the collection in 2019. This material has been incorporated into the arrangement of the finding aid and is listed by box, usually at the end of the appropriate series.