Our Blog

When exactly did the word “witch” become a label one wears with pride?

Today, the word evokes images of power and success, emblazoned on everything from mugs lining the shelves of Target to Instagram and #WitchTok posts. What was once a pink glittery “girl boss” in loopy font is now “100% that witch” in glittery black loopy font. The message is the same, though. This is a woman who has her life together and is doing all the things.

The witch: she’s having a moment.

(Beacon Press)

So you love Octavia E. Butler. We get it. We love her too.

But now what?

You’ve read Octavia E. Butler’s Kindred (1979), and you loved the time travel plot that wove seamlessly with slave narratives of the pre-Civil War South. You’ve read Fledgling (2005) too, or maybe you enjoyed Butler’s other shorter fiction like “Bloodchild,” her novelette which won the Nebula and Hugo Awards in 1985. Perhaps the current political climate had you racing towards her dystopian novels Parable of the Sower (1993) and Parable of the Talents (1998), which presented a view of the future that includes environmental horrors, walls erected around the middle class, and a terrifying fundamentalist leader whose rally cry is “Help Us to Make America Great Again.”

If you’ve enjoyed reading Butler’s fiction, we have some other writers whose work you should add to your reading list.