EDITOR’S NOTE

Octavia Estelle Butler died on a Friday in February of 2006 at the age of 58. Her death is believed by many to have been caused by a fall, that was caused by a stroke, that was caused by the severe hypertension she’d been battling for several years. She left no immediate survivors, but many progeny nonetheless.

How many of us have pored over her stories, novels, and prophetic affirmations in search of that “thing” that kept her going? Kept her thinking, and creating, and building new worlds despite the realities of poverty and undertreated illness which colored her own? Perhaps it was her mother’s gift of a typewriter for her 11th birthday, despite receiving criticisms from family for being overly indulgent of the child’s impractical ambitions, that sustained her will to survive an artist’s life.

When I was around that same age, I was also gifted a token of conviction by my mother to encourage my writerly aspirations—mine in the form of a laptop—so I understand how powerful a force the transference of Black motherly belief can be. But what is the weight of a Black mother’s faith in the face of a crumbling empire?

Butler faced these ever-present conditions with the help of community and the safe space of her journals, where she returned over and over to reaffirm her ability to achieve the future she saw for herself.

“I write best selling novels,” she wrote. “So be it, see to it.”

Fourteen years after her death, during the earliest days of the Covid-19 pandemic one of Butler’s prophecies was fulfilled. Amidst global crises, mass death, and petrifying uncertainty, people flocked to the works of the prolific sci-fi author, making her 1993 novel, “Parable of the Sower,” appear on the New York Times bestseller list for the very first time.

We are about halfway through 2023 now, nearing the year in which Butler’s prescient best seller is set. Looking around, it is hard not to believe we are living through another of her prophecies made manifest, especially for those of us rooted in the South. The prevalence of climate disasters are steadily increasing, economic strife abounds, white christian nationalists threaten and gain power, there is a war waging against our trans kin, our babies are being stripped of their right to an honest and just education, and the attacks against birthing people’s bodily autonomy continues to threaten our lives.

Whether or not the next few years will unfold as Butler foretold, it seems we are at a critical inflection point (see U.S Pluto Return for my astro folks). As we began planning this issue, we thought about what all of this meant for those of us living and working through the now. What lessons around change, interdependence, and birthing new worlds were we being called to learn from Butler? How are we dealing with our Covid-19 grief and the pain of living through a dying world?

I’d like to think that we are charting something here. Creating a future of sorts. Leaving something necessary to be found by those who will surely come after. This is a world-building collection of fiction, essays, poetry, photography and art by southern-rooted Black women and femme folk. It is an offering. A testament to our presence, our perseverance, and our survival. It is a prophetic proclamation that no matter what may lie in the wake of this end, we will be here after.

We hope you enjoy The Hereafter Issue.

Ashley Nickens Founder & Chief Editor