He has fueled nine decades of creativity by immersion in all forms of literature, as well as film, comics, and music. To be a writer, for Bradbury, means consuming language in every available medium. He insists that a library holds all the education anyone needs. When Bradbury graduated from high school in 1938, he began going to the public library three nights a week instead of attending college. It just happened.” Next came a typewriter, a move from Waukegan to Hollywood, and an adolescence spent chasing adventure and movie stars.

They formed a connection through a shared magic trick, and an inchoate spark of recognition left Bradbury feeling profoundly changed: “It was intuitive. Electrico, a stunt performer at a traveling carnival. Writing took hold of Bradbury at age twelve, when he met Mr. Trust your subconscious to have all these springs in there.” To that end, he maintained a firm attachment to the myths and metaphors of youth, keeping his study full of toy robots, model spacecraft, dinosaur figurines, and other trappings of his inquisitive boyhood. “Never think about stories,” Bradbury says. Each new story will benefit from what was wrong with the last one, and in the end, the writer will learn from himself. Bradbury advises aspiring writers to write one story a week for fifty-two weeks. Listen to the Echoes: The Ray Bradbury InterviewsĪn unexpected gift in the transcriptions is that Bradbury does more than mine his life story for anecdotes: he also teaches a model for a writing life. Weller steps out from behind the mirror only once, when he mentions that he is a professor of creative writing. Through years of studying the author’s life to write his biography, The Bradbury Chronicles, Weller knew where to steer these interviews to bring out the story, demonstrating his encyclopedic knowledge of Bradbury by catching him in the occasional contradiction or pressing him on a detail. In this compilation spanning a decade of interviews, Sam Weller showcases two facets of Ray Bradbury: his boundless natural curiosity and his diligently practiced craft.

The Bradbury Chronicles by Sam Weller