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Lake Forest Park, Washington, has evolved from logging region to bedroom community during its 100-year-plus history. Established just north of Seattle in 1912, it is one of the first planned communities in Washington state. But one of its residents is better known outside the city than within, where she lived quietly and wrote ground-breaking science fiction.

Octavia Estelle Butler, known in the sci fi world as “the grande dame of science fiction,” moved to Lake Forest Park in 1999 and was already celebrated as the creator of acclaimed novels such as “Kindred,” “Patternmaster” and “Parable of the Sower.” Making her success even more remarkable is that she was an African American woman who blazed a trail into a writing genre dominated by white men, paving the way for other female novelists as well as writers of color.

Butler, who died in 2006, was the first black female science fiction writer to reach national prominence and the only writer in her genre to receive a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship. Her novel “Kindred,” in which a young black woman travels back in time to 1800s Maryland, has become a staple of college literature courses, and her work continues to be popular with sci fi fans.

Butler was always determined to be a writer, and at age 9 decided she would tell stories about alien worlds and strange beings after seeing a 1954 B-movie called “Devil Girl From Mars.” Raised in southern California, she attended college in Los Angeles and studied at the Screenwriter’s Guild Open Door Program and the Clarion Science Fiction Writers’ Workshop, and worked odd jobs like dishwasher and potato chip inspector while continuing to write.

It was at the Clarion workshop that she took a class with science fiction master Harlan Ellison, and he became her tutor and mentor, leading to Butler selling her first science fiction stories. Her first book, “Patternmaster,” was published in 1976 and caught people’s attention. It became part of The Patternist series, which revolved around a group of elite beings with telepathic superpowers. She wrote more than a dozen books in all as well as short stories.

With the publication of “Kindred” in 1979, Butler was able to support herself writing full-time. In addition to being awarded the MacArthur “genius grant” in 1995, she has also been honored with science fiction’s equivalent of the National Book Award — two each of the coveted Nebula and Hugo awards.

Butler unexpectedly died in February 2006 at age 58, dying after a fall that may have resulted from a stroke. However, her legacy continues to live on and inspire other writers, and the Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship enables writers of color to attend one of the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Workshops. The first scholarships were awarded in 2007, and continue to be awarded annually.

Helping turn students’ dreams of academic success into reality is also the goal of Lake Forest Park tutors, who can smooth the path for students at all levels and ages.