UCLA Marathon Reading is right around the corner, so it’s time to get excited by highlighting one of our featured authors! Octavia E. Butler was born on June 22, 1947. From a young age, she was a prolific writer. As a teen, Butler began to create science fiction after watching the movie Devil Girl from Mars, and concluding that she could come up with a more captivating story. By the 1980s, Butler was a renowned author, having published several novels, including Kindred (1979). She won a MacArthur Fellowship (popularly known as a “Genius Grant”) in 1995, becoming the first science fiction author to win this incredible honor. Unfortunately, Butler died unexpectedly at the age of 58, but her gripping discussion of issues such as sex, race, and religion lives on through her literary works.