by Octavia Butler

read by Amanda Ching

This story originally appeared in the May 1987 issue of Omni (available for free here: https://archive.org/details/omni-magazine-1987-05)

Drabblecast’s production of Bloodchild: http://www.drabblecast.org/2013/10/31/drabblecast-300-bloodchild/

The Octavia Butler Foundation’s scholarships for writers of color: http://octaviabutler.org/scholarship/

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For a list of all Escape Pod stories, authors and narrators, visit our sortable Wikipedia page

author Octavia Butler

about the author…

from OctaviaButler.org:

Octavia Estelle Butler, often referred to as the “grand dame of science fiction,” was born in Pasadena, California on June 22, 1947.  She received an Associate of Arts degree in 1968 from Pasadena Community College, and also attended California State University in Los Angeles and the University of California, Los Angeles.  During 1969 and 1970, she studied at the Screenwriter’s Guild Open Door Program and the Clarion Science Fiction Writers’ Workshop, where she took a class with science fiction master Harlan Ellison (who later became her mentor), and which led to Butler selling her first science fiction stories.

Butler’s first story, “Crossover,” was published in the 1971 Clarion anthology.  Patternmaster, her first novel and the first title of her five-volume Patternist series, was published in 1976, followed by Mind of My Mind in 1977.  Others in the series include Survivor (1978), Wild Seed (1980), which won the James Tiptree Award, and Clay’s Ark (1984).

With the publication of Kindred in 1979, Butler was able to support herself writing full time.  She won the Hugo Award in 1984 for her short story, “Speech Sounds,” and in 1985, Butler’s novelette “Bloodchild” won a Hugo Award, a Nebula Award, the Locus Award, and an award for best novelette from Science Fiction Chronicle.

Other books by Octavia E. Butler include the Xenogenesis trilogy: Dawn (1987), Adulthood Rites (1988) and Imago (1989), and a short story collection, Bloodchild and Other Stories (1995).  Parable of the Sower (1993), the first of her Earthseed series, was a finalist for the Nebula Award as well as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.  The book’s sequel, Parable of the Talents (1998), won a Nebula Award.

In 1995 Butler was awarded a prestigious MacArthur Foundation fellowship.

Awards

1980, Creative Arts Award, L.A. YWCA

1984, Hugo Award for Best Short Story – Speech Sounds

1984, Nebula Award for Best Novelette – Bloodchild

1985, Science Fiction Chronicle Award for Best Novelette – Bloodchild

1985, Locus Award for Best Novelette – Bloodchild

1985, Hugo Award for Best Novelette –  Bloodchild

1995, MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Grant

1999, Nebula Award for Best Novel – Parable of the Talents

2000, PEN American Center lifetime achievement award in writing

2010, Inductee Science Fiction Hall of Fame

2012, Solstice Award, Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America

narrator Amanda Ching

about the narrator…

Amanda Ching is a freelance editor and writer. Her work has appeared in WordRiot, Candlemark & Gleam’s Alice: (re)Visions, and every bathroom stall on I-80 from Pittsburgh to Indianapolis. She tweets @cerebralcutlass and blogs at amandaching.wordpress.com.

Amanda last Read for EP episode 461: Selkie Stories are for Losers