Those of you who stop by TBTP on a regular basis know that I am an evangelist for the work of Octavia E. Butler . The first widely read Black science fiction author and Afro-Futurist pioneer was also a perspicacious social critic. Her brilliant essay “A Few Rules for Predicting the Future,” published in 2000 for Essence magazine, was recently republished  by Chronicle Books, featuring exciting futurist collages by Manzel Bowman.

Butler’s essay was written in respondence to a student’s question, “Do you really believe that in the future we’re going to have the kind of trouble you write about in your books?” The question referred to Butler’s warnings about increasing drug addiction, illiteracy, global warming and untold seeds of doomsday scenarios. “I didn’t make up the problems,” she noted, “all I did was look around at the problems we’re neglecting now and give them about 30 years to grow into full-fledged disasters.”

Queried if there was a solution to the problems, Butler replied there is not one, but many—and “the very act of trying to look ahead to discern possibilities and offer warnings is in itself an act of hope.”