Rediscovering Octavia Butler’s essay “Lost Races of Science Fiction”

It began as a recollection to celebrate the late science fiction author’s 74th birthday; it ended up on the website of the Los Angeles Review of Books

15-year-old Miguel Esteban with the one and only issue of Transmission Magazine. Photo Dan Watson.

I woke up on Sunday, June 20, 2021, and decided to write a piece I had been thinking about for several years. Two days later would have marked the 74th birthday of the renowned science fiction writer Octavia E. Butler and this was my contribution to that celebration.

Despite previous failed efforts to write the essay, I produced a first draft in just a few hours. I continued my work over lunch at a Spanish tapas restaurant, printout and red pen in hand. Some close friends provided insightful and constructive comments. In just over 24 hours, I had completed the final draft.

My memory and the documents I excavated permitted me to retell the story of my 14-year-old self’s encounter with 32-year-old Octavia Butler in detail. Research included obtaining documents from the Octavia Butler archives at the Huntington Library in Pasadena, convincing Eric Foss (devoted archivist of the Hour 25 radio program) to find and digitalize the show I appeared in, locating the original program of the Fantasy Faire convention in Pasadena where I first heard Octavia Butler speak on the subject of race in science fiction, and more.

Even though the photo above gives an inkling of the amount of materials required to put together one issue of a 24-page magazine (and I had apparently begun commissioning stories for a second issue), I had not saved anything from that failed experiment. Inexplicably, though, I had saved a stapler that my older sister’s friend contributed as equipment for this teenage publishing tycoon’s bedroom office.

Miguel Esteban’s stapler from 1979, one of the last artefacts from the era of Transmission Magazine.

Besides the writing I do for my work as a producer and artistic director, I had not had any work published since I was in my teens. So to see this first adult effort appear on the website of the Los Angeles Review of Books meant a lot to me.

Although I do not expect similar results for all of my future pieces, this experience has given me precious motivation to pursue new writing projects.

“Octavia Butler and the Pimply, Pompous Publisher” by Miguel Esteban appears on the website of the Los Angeles Review of Books.