Star Child: A Biographical Constellation of Octavia Estelle Butler

This biography traces the early life of Octavia E. Butler through prose and poetry. It follows a Black child who loved speculative and science fiction but did not find herself represented in much of what she read and watched. Butler went on to invent worlds and create stories centered on Black and brown characters, often women. Her work helped shape Afrofuturism. Stars and the universe provide a recurring framework throughout the book: prose sections and connecting poems return to those ideas, while concrete poems also use their visual form to engage with them.