Left: “Estella Butler’s Apple Valley Autonomy” (2024); right: “To Acorn (1984)” (2023) (courtesy Pioneer Works) Artist has hand-traced intimate ephemera like doodles, bus schedules ...

The brisk sales of Octavia Butler’s ninth novel, “The Parable of the Sower” is especially notable since Butler, who died in 2006, was born in Pasadena. A middle school there bears her name.