RAY BRADBURY Biography - Writers

 
 

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RAY BRADBURY

,Ray Bradbury American novelist, short story writer, essayist, playwright,         
screenwriter and poet, was born August 22, 1920 in Waukegan, Illinois. He           
graduated from a Los Angeles high school in 1938. Although his formal education     
ended there, he became a "student of life," selling newspapers on L.A. street       
corners from 1938 to 1942, spending his nights in the public library and his       
days at the typewriter. He became a full-time writer in 1943, and contributed       
numerous short stories to periodicals before publishing a collection of them,       
Dark Carnival, in 1947.                                                             
                                                                                   
His reputation as a writer of courage and vision was established with the           
publication of The Martian Chronicles in 1950, which describes the first           
attempts of Earth people to conquer and colonize Mars, and the unintended           
consequences. Next came The Illustrated Man and then, in 1953, Fahrenheit 451,     
which many consider to be Bradbury's masterpiece, a scathing indictment of         
censorship set in a future world where the written word is forbidden. In an         
attempt to salvage their history and culture, a group of rebels memorize entire     
works of literature and philosophy as their books are burned by the totalitarian   
state. Other works include The October Country, Dandelion Wine, A Medicine for     
Melancholy, Something Wicked This Way Comes, I Sing the Body Electric!, Quicker     
Than the Eye, and Driving Blind. In all, Bradbury has published more than thirty   
books, close to 600 short stories, and numerous poems, essays, and plays. His       
short stories have appeared in more than 1,000 school curriculum "recommended       
reading" anthologies.                                                               
                                                                                   
Ray Bradbury's work has been included in four Best American Short Story             
collections. He has been awarded the O. Henry Memorial Award, the Benjamin         
Franklin Award, the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement, the Grand         
Master Award from the Science Fiction Writers of America, the PEN Center USA       
West Lifetime Achievement Award, among others. In November 2000, the National       
Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters was       
conferred upon Mr. Bradbury at the 2000 National Book Awards Ceremony in New       
York City.                                                                         
                                                                                   
Ray Bradbury has never confined his vision to the purely literary. He has been     
nominated for an Academy Award (for his animated film Icarus Montgolfier Wright),   
and has won an Emmy Award (for his teleplay of The Halloween Tree). He adapted     
sixty-five of his stories for television's Ray Bradbury Theater. He was the         
creative consultant on the United States Pavilion at the 1964 New York World's     
Fair. In 1982 he created the interior metaphors for the Spaceship Earth display     
at Epcot Center, Disney World, and later contributed to the conception of the       
Orbitron space ride at Euro-Disney, France.                                         
                                                                                   
Married since 1947, Mr. Bradbury and his wife Maggie lived in Los Angeles with     
their numerous cats. Together, they raised four daughters and had eight             
grandchildren. Sadly, Maggie passed away in November of 2003, please click here     
to learn more about Maggie.                                                         
                                                                                   
On the occasion of his 80th birthday in August 2000, Bradbury said, "The great     
fun in my life has been getting up every morning and rushing to the typewriter     
because some new idea has hit me. The feeling I have every day is very much the     
same as it was when I was twelve. In any event, here I am, eighty years old,       
feeling no different, full of a great sense of joy, and glad for the long life     
that has been allowed me. I have good plans for the next ten or twenty years,       
and I hope you'll come along."