Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship". carlbrandon.org. Carl Brandon Society. 2015 . Retrieved October 15, 2016.

Butler followed Clay's Ark with the critically acclaimed short story "Bloodchild" (1984). Set on an alien planet, it depicts the complex relationship between human refugees and the insect-like aliens who keep them in a preserve to protect them, but also to use them as hosts for breeding their young. Sometimes called Butler's "pregnant man story", "Bloodchild" won the Nebula, Hugo, and Locus Awards, and the Science Fiction Chronicle Reader Award. [23] However, the ooloi eventually cut against the effect of the drugs, because, after the humans have mated with them, they turn the humans against themselves. Rather than have solidarity with their human group, each pair of humans instead feels solidarity with their mates (human and Oankali). For example, when Peter's ooloi accidentally kills him, Jean is inconsolable and will not let anyone touch her. Lilith notes, "All of the humans who had been kept heavily drugged were this way—unable to tolerate the nearness of anyone except their human mate and the ooloi who had drugged them" (196). When humans own other humans, it is referred to as slavery. Lilith does not describe Oankali "ownership" of the humans as such, but she does allude to slavery in "The Training Floor." Lilith notes: "Now it was time for them to begin planting their own crops. And, perhaps, now it was time for the Oankali to begin to see what they would harvest in their human crop" (205). The use of the term "human crop" shows how distanced the Oankali are from the humans—they do not see them as equals and instead see them as experimental animals, as Lilith attests early in the novel. a b c d e f g h i j k Pfeiffer, John R. "Butler, Octavia Estelle (b. 1947)." in Richard Bleiler (ed.), Science Fiction Writers: Critical Studies of the Major Authors from the Early Nineteenth Century to the Present Day, 2nd edn. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1999. 147–158.The acclaimed trilogy that comprises Lilith’s Broodis multiple Hugo and Nebula award-winner Octavia E. Butler at her best. Presented for the first time in one volume, with an introduction by Joan Slonczewski, Ph.D., Lilith’s Brood is a profoundly evocative, sensual — and disturbing — epic of human transformation. Charlie Rose, "A Conversation with Octavia Butler", Charlie Rose. 2000. [Two videos on YouTube: Part 1 and Part 2.] Stephen W. Potts, "'We Keep on Playing the Same Record': A Conversation with Octavia E. Butler", Science Fiction Studies 23.3. November 1996, pp.331–338. JSTOR 4240538.

Bollinger, Laurel. "Placental Economy: Octavia Butler, Luce Irigaray, And Speculative Subjectivity". Lit: Literature Interpretation Theory 18.4 (2007): 325–352. doi: 10.1080/10436920701708044. Nancy Jesser argues that Lilith's behavioral changes are part of a larger Oankali project of "improving" the human race. She writes, "[i]n Butler's plot, it is the Oankali's modification of the human genome that will accomplish what centuries of civilization, getting burnt in the hot fire of human stupidity, failed to do." In other words, Oankali modification of human genetics will change human behavior, and humanity will be less likely to destroy the earth with nuclear war. However, in the end, humans will no longer be human. Joseph understands this when he declares, at the end of "Nursery," that at least Peter "'died human'" (196). He wonders what they will be like once they finally make it to Earth: "'Will we want to by then? What will we be, I wonder? Not human. Not anymore'" (196). Slavery When Lilith is Awakened and starts living with and learning about the Oankali in turn, her knowledge acquisition is at a disadvantage. First, because Lilth's memory does not have the same capacity as Oankali memory and this puts her at a disadvantage when learning the Oankali language or learning to differentiate between Oankali individuals. More importantly, however, the Oankali will simply not provide an answer that they do not want Lilith to know. Some of this knowledge would give Lilith power the Oankali perceive as dangerous. For example, during her first meal at Jdhaya's house, Lilith asks whether human food can poison any Oankalis. Kahguyaht responds that vulnerable individuals—the elderly and the young—would respond negatively to certain human foods. Lilith asks which foods in particular, which angers Kahguyaht. It asks Lilith, "'Why do you ask, Lilith? What would you do if I told you? Poison a child?'" Lilith responds that she would never hurt a child to which Kahguyaht replies, "'You just haven't learned yet not to ask dangerous questions'" (48). The "dangerous knowledge" that Lilith would acquire in this situation would give her the power to decide whether a certain Oankali lives or dies; clearly, only the Oankali want to hold that power for themselves. To close the conversation, Kahguyaht tells Lilith, "'within reason, we want you to know us'" (48). Evidently, Lilith's "reasonable" knowledge of the Oankali does not include anything that augments her power. They intend to keep her (and the rest of humanity) subjugated, and therefore dependent on them.She also encouraged Butler to write. She bought her daughter her first typewriter when she was 10 years old, and, seeing her hard at work on a story casually remarked that maybe one day she could become a writer, causing Butler to realize that it was possible to make a living as an author. [7] A decade later, Mrs. Butler would pay more than a month's rent to have an agent review her daughter's work. [12] She also provided Butler with the money she had been saving for dental work to pay for Butler's scholarship so she could attend the Clarion Science Fiction Writers Workshop, where Butler sold her first two stories. [23]