The Illustrated Man is seventy years old!

Ray Bradbury's seminal short story collection The Illustrated Man is seventy years old. To celebrate, I'm giving an illustrated online talk as part of the University of Wolverhampton's Artsfest. Please join me on 16th November (7pm UK time)!

It's free and open to all, but you have to register. Details here:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/ray-bradburys-the-illustrated-man-at-seventy-tickets-203217999507

 

October: Bradbury Season!

 Halloween is upon us once more, that most Bradburyan of seasons. 

By way of celebration, here's another chance to listen to the Bradbury 100 podcast episode I put out last Halloween, in which I discuss what October meant to Ray Bradbury, and interviewed the remarkable actor Bill Oberst Jr, the man dubbed "the King of Horror"!

Bradbury 100 · Bradbury 100 - Episode 15 - with actor Bill Oberst Jr

New Bradbury 100 Episode: Revealed at Last - The Lonely One!

Time for a new episode of my podcast Bradbury 100. With this episode, I'm starting on an occasional series of shorter episodes. The topic is one which has previously brought thousands of visitors to this website:

The Lonely One.

The Lonely One is a fictional character in Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine. I say "character", but he is really just a shadowy figure who never comes into focus, and never occupies the foreground.

But the Lonely One was also a real criminal in Ray's childhood home of Waukegan, Illinois. I exclusively revealed his true identity in 2009, and my blog post about him has had more "hits" than any other page on the whole of Bradburymedia. So I thought I would share my findings with the podcast audience.

Here's the podcast episode:

Bradbury 100 · Bradbury 100 - episode 26 - Tracking Down THE LONELY ONE...

 

And to read my original 2009 blog post about the Lonely One - which includes a photo of this notorious petty criminal - click here.

Ray and JFK

You may have seen this post on LitHub. It reproduces a 1962 letter that Ray Bradbury wrote to Arthur M. Schlesinger, the historian who was a special advisor to President Kennedy. Bradbury offers his services - whichever services the president might feel appropriate - in promoting the new space age.

This is another illustration of how Ray's book publication history fails to reflect his "real" interests.

By 1962 - when he wrote this letter - in the public eye he had move far beyond science fiction. He had published The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man and Fahrenheit 451 - and that was it for SF. Then he was on to Dandelion Wine, The October Country, The Golden Apples of the Sun, A Medicine for Melancholy - all quite far removed from SF. Plus he had been busily writing the screenplay for Moby Dick, episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and a bunch of one-act Irish plays.

 

But what wasn't visible to the public was that he was deeply involved in trying to get The Martian Chronicles filmed. He had worked on various script drafts since 1957, and in 1962 he seemed closest to getting the film made. What perfect timing this would have been for him, for The Martian Chronicles: The Movie to have been made just as Kennedy was launching the real space programme.

 

Despite all the claims that he didn't like being called a science fiction writer, you can see from this letter that he really did want to be known for his SF. The "space age" meant a lot to him. It was vindication of his "silly" childish fantasies about rocketships.

 

JFK replied to Bradbury, thanking him for the books he had gifted. But he didn't go so far as to invite Ray to become a space advisor. However, around that same time, Bradbury wrote a number of articles about space for Life and other publications. He was determined to be associated, in the public mind, with space. And, indeed, he eventually succeeded. See Jon Eller's Bradbury Beyond Apollo for a full account of Ray's space activities!

 

Alas, Kennedy's assassination the following year brought a big interruption to everything. In various interviews Ray talked about where he was the day Kennedy died: he was on his way into Hollywood for a script meeting about The Martian Chronicles. He knew that nobody would be able to concentrate on anything, so the meeting was cancelled and he returned home instead.

 

By 1965, The Martian Chronicles movie was cancelled. Ray had written at least two distinctly different scripts, and was working with the makers of the successful To Kill A Mockingbird. But they couldn't get the movie into a shape they were all happy with, and so the project died. (The 1980 Martian Chronicles TV miniseries was an unrelated attempt to adapt the book; Ray played no part in the scripting of that version.)

 

Arguably, the death of Kennedy brought a renewed determination to achieve the goal, by the end of the decade, of "putting a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth". And when it happened, Bradbury was prominent in media coverage - as was his science fiction friend and colleague Arthur C. Clarke. On the night of the Moon landing, Bradbury walked out of a British David Frost entertainment show (it was more concerned with showbiz than with celebrating humanity's setting foot on another world), but was also interviewed on national TV in the US.

Bradbury 100 LIVE

On Saturday 21st August - the eve of Ray Bradury's 101st birthday - I took to the "airwaves" of Facebook with another live edition of Bradbury 100.

I was joined over Zoom by writer and former Hollywood animation producer Steven Paul Leiva. Steve knew Ray Bradbury well, having worked with him on the abortive Little Nemo In Slumberland film project, and having organised "Ray Bradbury Week" in Los Angeles in 2010. Steve was also the very first interview guest on the Bradbury 100 audio podcast about a year ago, and it was great to talk to him again.

The live show was recorded, and below you will find a slightly remastered version of the show. Highlights of the show:

• never-before-seen photos from Ray's 90th birthday party
• never-before-seen video from the same party
• Steve's inside scoop on what went wrong (and occasionally right) with Little Nemo in Slumberland
• discussion of Ray and his good friend, the animation legend Chuck Jones

You can find out more about Steven Paul Leiva on his blog, which also has information on his books, which I heartily recommend.

Bradbury 101!

Today would have been Ray Bradbury's 101st birthday - so what better way to celebrate than with a new episode of my Youtube series, Bradbury 101. This time, I look at The October Country. Scroll down to play it.

Thanks to everyone who joined me for yesterday's Bradbury 100 LIVE on Facebook. The recording is still there if you missed it and want to take a look. Or you can wait a few days, and I'll put a better quality version on here. (The live show was done through Zoom, which degrades the picture and sound quality terribly. But I also recorded it "locally", so I can put out a kind of re-mastered version!)

 

 

Bradbury 100 - new episode - AND Live Show

Phil 'n' Ray, back in the day...

 

Tomorrow (22nd August 2021) would have been Ray Bradbury's 101st birthday. That means that the "Bradbury centenary year" is drawing to a close. And so, to round out the centenary I offer you a new episode of the Bradbury 100 podcast as well as Bradbury 100 - LIVE!

The LIVE show will be streamed on Facebook, and I'll also post a recording of it here after the event. (Give me a couple of days - these things don't happen instantly!)

But the "standard", audio podcast is available now. Scroll down and click play, or of course pick the episode up on your podcast app.

In this end-of-centenary podcast episode, I turn the tables (or the microphone) on myself. Instead of interviewing a guest, I talk about my own experiences with Ray - the handful of times I met him, what we talked about, and so on. I'm a bit more brutal when editing myself than when editing interviewees, so this episode is a bit shorter than usual!

Among the things I talk about in the podcast:

• my various academic (and non-academic) writings on Ray
• the one chapter of my PhD thesis which has so far been published, which happens to be about Fahrenheit 451
• Leviathan '99
• Ray's 90th birthday party
  
• This Land is Mine (Jean Renoir, 1943)
• The BBC documentary Ray Bradbury: The Illustrated Man (1980)

 

Of course, now that the Bradbury Centenary is closing, you may be wondering what becomes of Bradbury 100. Well, I already have my sequel/spin-off, the Youtube channel Bradbury 101, but I'm not done with the audio podcast yet. Watch this space to see what happens next...

 

Bradbury 100 · Bradbury 100 - episode 25 - with Phil Nichols...

Bradbury 100 in Top 10% of podcasts!

According to podcast aggregator Listen Notes, my podcast Bradbury 100 is in the top 10% of all podcasts. The figure is based on their estimate of number of downloads.

Thanks to everyone who has ever listened; I couldn't have done it without you!

Bradbury 100 - with Steve Gronert Ellerhoff

It's time for another new episode of the Bradbury 100 podcast. This week, I'm joined by writer and Bradbury scholar Steve Gronert Ellerhoff.

We talk about Ray Bradbury - and also Kurt Vonnegut! Did you know that Bradbury and Vonnegut knew each other? Or that they both had a TV series at the same time, from the same production company?

Following on from the success of Ray Bradbury Theatre (1985-1992), production company Atlantis signed up with Vonnegut to do a similar series, adapting Vonnegut's short stories in a similar way to Bradbury's stories. Kurt Vonnegut's Monkey House ran for two very short seasons - a total of seven episodes altogether. This pales in comparison to Ray's sixty-five episodes. 

Kurt Vonnegut and Ray Bradbury, in a publicity still for Atlantis by leading photographer Karsh.

In the podcast, we talk a bit about Vonnegut because Steve Ellerhoff wrote a book called Post-Jungian Psychology and the Short Stories of Ray Bradbury and Kurt Vonnegut: Golden Apples of the Monkey House!

We also tackle the difficult issue of how race is portrayed in some Bradbury stories from the 1950s. Bradbury took a strong stand against racism in a number of stories, including two of his Mars tales. Ironically, because they use dated language, they are today sometimes accused of being racist stories. I generally defend these stories as bold and brave anti-racist works, but I admit to being uncomfortable with the language used.

Find out more about Steve Ellerhoff's work on his website: http://www.sgellerhoff.com/

 

Bradbury 100 · Bradbury 100 - episode 24 - with writer Steve Gronert Ellerhoff

The Tip Jar - and new episodes on their way!

The eagle-eyed among you may have occasionally noticed the tip jar on this website. You know, this thing here:

 

I just wanted to reassure you that it's not a piece of malicious code that invaded the site. It's just a relatively non-intrusive way of inviting you to, maybe, contribute a little to the running costs of this little hub of Bradbury fandom. (Running costs, you say? Well, yes. Web hosting doesn't pay for itself, and nor does the software and hardware I used to make the Bradbury 100 podcast and the Bradbury 101 videos!)

All you do is click on the little floating Tip Me button down below, and you can buy me a metaphorical coffee! (I prefer Americano. No milk, no sugar.) Thanks.

Now that the commercial message is over, a quick update: there will be another new Bradbury 100 tomorrow (Saturday), where I'll be talking to writer and scholar Steve Gronert Ellerhoff; and another new one the following Saturday, where I'll be talking to... myself...

And don't forget on Saturday 21st August 2021 there will also be a LIVE episode of Bradbury 100, which will be streaming on Facebook. I will give you more details of this a few days before the live show!