Today I learned that one of my all-time favorite science fiction writers, Octavia Butler, never drove, but instead took the bus around her Pasadena and then Los Angeles environs. She thought about and worked on her stories while in transit and walking.
I know this from Lynell George, who among other things has studied Butler's diaries and papers in the collection at the Huntington Library in San Marino. George recently published a four-page article about some of the significant places in Butler's life. It's on pages 32–35 of this pdf of LA Parent magazine.
From the article, I learned that Butler's junior high library is now named for her and has a mural in her honor, and that the beautiful Los Angeles Central Public Library has a DIY studio space called the Octavia Lab, which wasn't there when I last visited in 2010.
The Pasadena Central Library, where Octavia Butler spent many hours as a child and teenager.
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Lynell George is the author of A Handful of Earth, a Handful of Sky: The World of Octavia Butler. Here's an earlier story about her research on Butler.
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