Ray Bradbury

RAY BRADBURY (1920–2012) was for decades the world’s most preeminent author of science fiction and fantasy, acclaimed for such renowned titles as Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles. He began writing quite young, selling jokes to radio comedian George Burns when he was 14, and publishing his first short story—to Imagination magazine—when he was 18. He would go on to write not only seminal sci-fi, but numerous other kinds of books, as well as numerous television and movie screenplays, such as for TV’s Twilight Zone and John Huston’s Moby Dick. When he died in 2012, President Obama said, “His gift for storytelling reshaped our culture and expanded our world.”Editor SAM WELLER is the author of The Bradbury Chronicles: The Life of Ray Bradbury, and has lectured across the United States on the life and work of Bradbury. Weller is a professor in the Fiction Writing Department at Columbia College Chicago.