HerStory 2023 – Page 2

When you think of science fiction writing, and particularly female science fiction authors, one of the first to pop into most people’s minds is Octavia Butler. So much of what she wrote is deep in the thread of modern fiction, and her influence is so broad, that we couldn’t possibly NOT feature her this year. And it must be said that, even though she is considered to be a science fiction writer by many, she herself didn’t necessarily agree; Butler resisted being pigeonholed as a genre writer, and claimed to have three loyal audiences: black readers, science-fiction fans, and feminists.

Butler was raised by her mother and grandmother, having lost her father at a young age. She was a shy kid who found solace in the local library, and her mother encouraged her reading and writing. Butler read the heck out of the sci-fi available at the time, but continually found herself disappointed and frustrated by the lack of representation to be found in the works available to her. As her writing career began to take shape, she made conscious efforts to center protagonists that reflected her own life experiences, which was baffling to many editors at the time. A Black woman, centered in a science fiction work? Who would read that? (Sound familiar, friends? It seems like this is what all of our HerStory recipients hear at some time in their journey: since you aren’t centering those that have always been centered, your work has less intrinsic value and interest. GEESH!)

Particularly in these recent times, when the dangers of a lot of what was traditionally reserved for science fiction works look more and more likely to actually come to pass, reading Octavia Butler and her no-holds-barred view of the downfalls of society becomes both more important and more difficult. She doesn’t shy away from the ugliness that can be at the heart of modern society, and the dangers of continuing on a path informed by white supremacy and capitalism. Even through that, there is a thread of hope and redemption that runs through her works, and keeps her on to-read lists everywhere.

The Xenogensis trilogy, also known as Lilith’s Brood, is one of Octavia Butler’s most popular and enduring work, and we’ve used a particularly vibrant version of the cover of book three as our colorway inspiration this month.

Books by Octavia Butler:

Kindred
Parable of the Sower / Parable of the Talents
The Patternist Series
The Xenogenesis Trilogy

Want more like this? Here are some other authors we suggest you read/listen to:

Nnedi Okorafor
Marie Lu
Nalo Hopkinson
Rebecca Roanhorse
Fonda Lee
Janelle Monae

We hope you enjoy this HerStory Book Club as much as we have enjoyed putting it together. We envision an open-ended Book Club, with folks reading or listening to whichever book they’d like from each author’s If you’d like a spoiler of all of the authors we’ll be showcasing this year, check out our website: https://knittedwit.com/herstory-2022-authors/

Mia Birdsong, b. 1973

For our second year of HerStory Book Club, we are starting in much the same way we finished 2022. Our final theme for 2022 was breaking the burnout cycle many of us find ourselves in, and our first theme for 2023 is building community to feed our souls. Starting and ending with hope and purpose seem like good ways to bookend our club, and we hope you find January’s book and author as inspiring as we have.

We are starting our New Year off with hope and love as we feature Mia Birdsong and her transformative book, How We Show Up: Reclaiming Family, Friendship, and Community. This book discusses how building community and fostering deep personal relationships with others enhances our own lives, and how modern American society, so steeped in its particular brand of individualism and white supremacy, leans away from deep connection instead of toward it. The particular focus of this book is on communities that encompass marginalized folks, such as Black and brown people, the LGBTQIA+ community, poor, displaced, and houseless communities, and single mothers, to name a few. The way the people and communities that Birdsong interviewed for this book show up for each other is a lesson to be learned for all of us longing for belonging in our disconnected age.

This book is hopeful and beautiful and inspiring. It’s hard to listen to and hard to put down, all at once. It inspires us to hold a mirror to our own lives and think more deeply about how we are working on our own communities, and how much more we have to gain from deepening those communities than from building more walls around our own places in the world.

Mia Birdsong is a writer, advocate, speaker, community member, mother, partner, friend, and thinker. Her work centers the marginalized and explores what is possible if community was centered more in our lives. Her communities are many and wide-ranging, and through them, she has found deep meaning and love and support. We could all learn a thing or two from her work and her example. Our colorway, How We Show Up, was inspired by the lovely interconnectedness of the book cover, and we hope to knit our communities together using this yarn during this first month of 2023.

Books by Mia Birdsong: