Bradbury and the Group

For many years, a group of Los Angeles-area writers got together for mutual support and to review each other's works in progress. Ray Bradbury was one of them.

What I didn't know is that the core of the group was established as far back as 1948, with the publication of Best American Short Stories 1948. Apparently some enterprising soul went through the book, found out which of its authors lived within easy distance of LA, and invited them to join the group.

Terry Sanders' 1963 documentary Ray Bradbury: Story of a Writer includes a short sequence showing the group reviewing Bradbury's "Dial Double Zero", although I'm not sure whether this reflects how the group really operated, or whether it is highly staged.

Now E.E.King has blogged about "the group", and reproduced a 1973 article by Bradbury's writer friend Sid Stebel, who Ray apparently described as "the best writing teacher that ever was!" The article is taken from the Los Angeles Times, Calendar section, 24 June 1973.

The Story of a Writer

One of the most frequently asked questions on the official Ray Bradbury Message Board is about a strange short film from the early 1960s in which a telephone line gains a life of its own. People who enquire about the story usually have a dim memory of this being a black and white film (and often report that the film scared the life out of them when they were little).

The mysterious film is actually a film-within-a-film. It is a dramatisation of "Dial Double Zero", and features in a short documentary about Ray Bradbury, The Story of a Writer. Produced by David L. Wolper and directed by Terry Sanders, the documentary shows Bradbury's approach to writing. We see him at his typewriter, giving a lecture, researching, cycling around the Venice, California canals, and reading his story to a writers' group.

For many years, this film was hard to get hold of. Then it was released on VHS and DVD by the American Film Foundation. And now, it's available to view and download - for free - from Archive.org.