Ray Bradbury Event “We’ll Always Have Paris” Conversation (Video)

Ray Bradbury will be having a book launch at the Beverly Hills Public Library on Feb. 13.

This is a wonderful opportunity to see the author in person, where he often shares stories from his past about notable encounters such as Walt Disney and NASA. He also discusses the craft of his writing and other interesting tidbits.

His latest work is called “We’ll Always Have Paris”, and it’s a collection of previously unpublished short fiction and poetry. The tickets for the event are $10 and you can get them here .

Browse our collection of Ray Bradbury Signed Limited Editions.

Ray Douglas Bradbury (born August 22, 1920) is an American mainstream, fantasy, horror, science fiction, and mystery writer.

Best known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles, Bradbury is widely considered one of the greatest and most popular American writers of speculative fiction of the twentieth century.

Ray Bradbury’s popularity has been increased by more than 20 television shows and films using his writings (see Adaptations of his work).

Works

Although he is often described as a science fiction writer, Bradbury does not box himself into a particular narrative categorization:

First of all, I don’t write science fiction. I’ve only done one science fiction book and that’s Fahrenheit 451, based on reality. Science fiction is a depiction of the real. Fantasy is a depiction of the unreal. So Martian Chronicles is not science fiction, it’s fantasy. It couldn’t happen, you see? That’s the reason it’s going to be around a long time—because it’s a Greek myth, and myths have staying power.

In 2004 it was reported that Bradbury was extremely upset with filmmaker Michael Moore for using the title Fahrenheit 9/11, which is an allusion to Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, for his documentary about the George W. Bush administration. Bradbury expressed displeasure with Moore’s use of the title but stated that his resentment was not politically motivated.Bradbury asserts that he does not want any of the money made by the movie, nor does he believe that he deserves it. He pressured Moore to change the name, but to no avail. Moore called Bradbury two weeks before the film’s release to apologize, saying that the film’s marketing had been set in motion a long time ago and it was too late to change the title.

"We'll Always Have Paris": Order today from Amazon.com

On another occasion, Bradbury observed that the novel touches on the alienation of people by media:

In writing the short novel Fahrenheit 451 I thought I was describing a world that might evolve in four or five decades. But only a few weeks ago, in Beverly Hills one night, a husband and wife passed me, walking their dog. I stood staring after them, absolutely stunned. The woman held in one hand a small cigarette-package-sized radio, its antenna quivering. From this sprang tiny copper wires which ended in a dainty cone plugged into her right ear. There she was, oblivious to man and dog, listening to far winds and whispers and soap-opera cries, sleep-walking, helped up and down curbs by a husband who might just as well not have been there. This was not fiction.

Besides his fiction work, Bradbury has written many short essays on the arts and culture, attracting the attention of critics in this field. Bradbury was a consultant for the American Pavilion at the 1964 New York World’s Fair and the original exhibit housed in Epcot’s Spaceship Earth geosphere at Walt Disney World.

A Conversation with Ray Bradbury

Bradbury was a close friend of Charles Addams and collaborated with him on the creation of the macabre “Family” enjoyed by New Yorker readers for many years and later popularized as The Addams Family. Bradbury called them the Elliotts and placed them in rural Illinois. His first story about them was “Homecoming,” published in the New Yorker Halloween issue for 1946, with Addams illustrations. He and Addams planned a larger collaborative work that would tell the family’s complete history, but it never materialized. In October 2001, Bradbury published all the Family stories he had written in one book with a connecting narrative, From the Dust Returned, featuring a wraparound Addams cover.

Bradbury was a friend of Charles Addams and they did collaborate, but in a 2001 interview Bradbury clearly states that they went their own separate ways, with Bradbury creating the Elliott Family and Addams creating the Addams family.

Honors

2004 National Medal of Arts award recipient Ray Bradbury with President George W. Bush and his wife Laura.

In 2007, Bradbury received the French Commandeur Ordre des Arts et des Lettres medal.
For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Ray Bradbury was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6644 Hollywood Blvd.
An asteroid is named in his honor, “9766 Bradbury,” along with a crater on the moon called “Dandelion Crater” (named after his novel, Dandelion Wine).
On April 16, 2007, Bradbury received a special citation from The Pulitzer Board, “for his distinguished, prolific, and deeply influential career as an unmatched author of science fiction and fantasy.”
On November 17, 2004, Bradbury was the recipient of the National Medal of Arts, presented by President George W. Bush and Laura Bush. Bradbury has also received the World Fantasy Award life achievement, Stoker Award life achievement, SFWA Grand Master, SF Hall of Fame Living Inductee, and First Fandom Award. He received an Emmy Award for his work on The Halloween Tree. He received the Prometheus Award for Fahrenheit 451.
The “About the Author” sections in several of his published works claim that he has been nominated for an Academy Award. A search of the Academy’s awards database proves this to be incorrect.^[20] One short film he worked on, Icarus Montgolfier Wright was nominated for an Academy Award, but Bradbury himself has not been.
Ray Bradbury Park was dedicated in Waukegan, Illinois in 1990. The author was present for the ribbon-cutting ceremony.The park contains locations described in “Dandelion Wine”, most notably the staircase.
Honorary doctorate from Woodbury University in 2003. Bradbury presents the Ray Bradbury Creativity Award each year at Woodbury University. Winners include sculptor Robert Graham, actress Anjelica Huston, Cosmopolitan editor Helen Gurley Brown, director Irvin Kershner, humorist Stan Freberg, and architect Jon A. Jerde.
Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters Award for 2000 from the National Book Foundation.
In 2008, he was named SFPA Grandmaster.