Of course, literature is a creative practice. Stories are one of the oldest forms of human creativity. Stories move us. Literature can also be an inspiration to our creative practices.
Like many people, I enjoy science fiction. Octavia Butler is one of those science fiction authors who has had a significant influence on my creative practice. Butler is an early Afrofuturist (some might call her the mother of Afrofuturism), exploring and portraying Black futures in bold ways.
The first books of hers that I read were The Parable of the Sower and The Parable of the Talents. In these books, she tells us of a version of the United States taken over by fascistic religious zealots and the lives of a group of people who struggle and strive to create a vibrant, egalitarian community amid oppression and suffering. Of course, this community is not perfect—no community is—and their challenges are just as significant as their achievements. Through these stories, we can glimpse and be moved by and learn from the creativity, tenacity, resourcefulness, and perseverance required to make other worlds possible.
Butler’s work, and The Parable of the Sower and The Parable of the Talents in particular, have been taken up as inspiration by others for ways to explore what’s possible and to engage the world with imagination. For example, adrienne maree brown draws upon the tenets of Earthseed (a religion developed in The Parable of the Sower) to frame her activism and her book Emergent Strategy. In Imagination: A manifesto Ruha Benjamin offers us an activity to ignite our imagination called “Welcome to Acorn” taken from the name of the community in The Parable of the Sower. In both these examples, Butler’s creative work becomes a catalyst for other creative work.
It’s worth considering what stories shape our creative practices? And how might we expand our creative practices, by turning to other stories for inspiration?