Ray Bradbury :: essays research papers

Ray Bradbury has written over more then five hundred published works and continues to keep writing. He is known as one of the best science fiction novelists and has won many awards and accommodations for it. After publishing his adult novel Fahrenheit 451, it was soon considered one of his best works. There is a question to be asked, Where does he get his inspiration and imagination to write wild stories of great fantasy? He stated that "When people ask me where I get my imagination, I simply lament, God, here and there, makes madness a calling" (Bradbury I). 	American novelist, short-story writer, essayist, playwright, screenwriter, and poet. Ray Bradbury was born in Waukegan, Illinois on August 22, 1920, the third son of Leonard Spaulding Bradbury and Esther Marie Moberg Bradbury. In the fall of 1926 Ray Bradbury's family moved from Waukegan, Illinois to Tucson, Arizona, only to return to Waukegan again in May 1927. By 1931 he began writing his own stories on butcher paper. His childhood was very important to him because it was a constant source of intense sensations, feelings, and images that generate great stories. As a child he was first inspired by seeing "The Hunchback of Notre Dame". "His childhood was that of a pleasant memory of a half-forgotten dream" (Person I). In 1932, after his father was laid off his job as a electrical lineman, the Bradbury family again moved to Tucson and again returned to Waukegan the following year. In 1934 the Bradbury family moved to Los Angeles, California. Bradbury graduated from a Los Angeles High School in 1938. His formal education ended there, but he furthered it by himself -- at night in the library and by day at his typewriter. He sold newspapers on Los Angeles street corners from 1938 to 1942. Bradbury's first story publication was "Hollerbochen's Dilemma," printed in 1938 in Imagination!, an amateur fan magazine. In 1939, 11Bradbury published four issues of "Futuria Fantasia", his own fan magazine, contributing much of the published material himself. Bradbury's first paid publication was "Pendulum" in 1941 to"Super Science Stories." In 1942 Bradbury wrote "The Lake," the story in which he discovered his distinctive writing style. By 1943 he had given up his job selling newspapers and began writing full-time, contributing numerous short stories to magazines such as "Black Mask", "Amazing Stories" and "Weird Tales." In 1945 his short story "The B ig Black and White Game" was selected for Best American Short Stories.