“I, Rocket” awarded Retro-Hugo for best short story

Jason Aukerman, managing director of the Center for Bradbury Studies, accepted the 1945 Retro-Hugo award for Ray Bradbury’s “I, Rocket” at the virtual CoNZealand WorldCon convention. The Retro-Hugo honors works published in years when no Hugo awards were awarded. In 2019, Bradbury’s “King of the Gray Spaces” from R is for Rocket received the 1944 Retro-Hugo for best short story.

Published in 1944, “I, Rocket” was Bradbury’s first sale to the iconic science fiction magazine Amazing Stories. Narrated by the rocket itself as it lies alone and broken on some distant planet after a lifetime of service, “I, Rocket” offers an uplifting story of the love of work and others. Surprisingly,  this award-winning story was not anthologized in Bradbury’s own collections but it can be found in Amazing Science Fiction Anthology: The War Years 1936-45.

Read “I, Rocket”
(Amazing Stories)
Read “I, Rocket”
(EC Comics)

I Saw it at Ray’s House, virtual exhibit at Soho Photo Gallery opens August 1

Artist Elizabeth Nahum-Albright’s exhibit of over 70 photographs, I Saw it at Ray’s House, will open online August 1 at sohophoto.com. Nahum-Albright knew Bradbury from the time she was a child: her father, Donn Albright, was Bradbury’s close friend, editor, and bibliographer. That personal connection gives her a unique visual perspective on the author’s relationship to both the house he lived in for over 50 years and the treasures he collected and looked to for inspiration. Nahum-Albright’s unique exhibition includes photos taken of the house when Bradbury lived there as well as bittersweet photos of items being packed up and shipped to their new home at the Center for Bradbury Studies.

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Killer, Come Back to Me, new collection of Bradbury crime fiction, available for pre-order

In Killer, Come back to Me, Hard Case Crime brings together twenty of Ray Bradbury’s finest works of crime fiction, including “The Small Assassin,” “The Whole Town’s Sleeping,” and the title story–Bradbury’s first published mystery. A joy to look at as well as read, this collectible first edition from Penguin Random House features original cover art from a painting by Paul Mann and eleven never-before-published illustrations by Robert Gale and Deena So’Oteh. Pre-order Killer, Come Back to Me now for an August 18th release, just in time for Ray Bradbury’s 100th birthday on August 22nd!
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Phil Nichols launches Bradbury 100 podcast

The Bradbury 100 podcast launches July 25th!  Each episode will delight fans and scholars alike as Phil Nichols, a film and literature specialist with a focus on Ray Bradbury, engages with a different aspect of the celebrated author’s work and interviews people Bradbury inspired. Listeners can expect to discover new perspectives on forgotten works and little known details about the last century of Bradbury as they prepare for the next. Check out  Nichols’ website, bradburymedia.co.uk, for even more information about all things Bradbury and media.

Follow the podcast on Facebook for updates on the show’s guests and content.

Click on the button below to listen to the Bradbury 100 podcast.
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Comic-Con Souvenir Book celebrates Ray Bradbury Centennial

The 2020 San Diego Comic-Con souvenir book typically handed out at the physical convention is now available to download as a PDF! The book honors Bradbury during the centennial of his birth with a stunning cover designed by internationally acclaimed artist William Stout, whose paleontological art previously graced Bradbury’s 1983 short story collection Dinosaur Tales. Inside, over 30 pages explore the Bradbury legacy, including essays by Jonathan Eller, whose Bradbury Beyond Apollo is now available for pre-order, and Phil Nichols, whose Bradbury 100 podcast debuts Saturday, July 25.

The 2020 San Diego Comic-Con celebration will open online on at 9:00 am PDT on Wednesday, July 22 and, unlike the events in years past, this one is FREE, with over 350 panels and programs and the 2020 Eisner Awards hosted on YouTube, 700 online exhibitors, Amazon Virtual-Con, cosplay, and more! Information on how to get your souvenir books and plan for Comic-Con is available here.
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South Pasadena Library Will Honor Ray Bradbury with Stained Glass Windows

South Pasadena glass artist Tim Carey has teamed with Judson Studios to create a stunning set of stained glass windows for the South Pasadena Public Library conference room named for beloved author and longtime library supporter Ray Bradbury. The windows of the Bradbury Conference Room will depict scenes from Fahrenheit 451, The Halloween Tree, The Martian Chronicles and other classic Bradbury tales.

Those interested in helping the library meet their $24,000 project goal are invited to contribute to the Friends of the Library.
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Irish Times recalls Bradbury’s “Irish Connection”

Irish author and academic George O’Brien marks the 100th anniversary of Ray Bradbury’s birth with an Irish Times article recalling the world renown writer’s storied time in Ireland.  In 1953, director John Huston hired Bradbury to write the screenplay for Moby Dick. Huston was living in County Kildare so Bradbury, his wife, and two daughters boarded a ship to Ireland and took up residence at Dublin’s Royal Hibernian Hotel. For the next seven months, he sat at his typewriter all day, tapping out his retelling of Herman Melville’s classic novel. At night, he would call a cab and take the pages to Huston for review. Bradbury’s memories of that time gave birth to a series of lyrical autobiographical vignettes that began with “The First Night of Lent,” originally published in Playboy’s March, 1956 issue. Thirty-five years of writing about Ireland was eventually brought together in Bradbury’s 1992 novel, Green Shadow, White Whale.
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Buy the Moby Dick Screenplay

Alta selects Fahrenheit 451 for Best West Coast Science Fiction list

Alta has named Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 one of its top ten works of West Coast Science fiction to read. Sparked, in part, by a late night encounter with the police when he was out on a walk, Bradbury wrote the classic novel in the basement of the UCLA library on a rented typewriter over just nine days in 1952.  Over half a century later, author and  editor David Ulin suggests that, like all good science fiction, Fahrenheit 451 shows “us where we are and where we might be headed.”   Read about Fahrenheit 451 and nine other books whose writing and messages have stood the test of time by clicking the button below.
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All of Me Is Illustrated featured in Alta Magazine

All of Me Is Illustrated was highlighted in this month’s issue of Alta. It is the first book to feature Ray Bradbury’s timeless stories “The Illustrated Man” and “The Illustrated Woman” together alongside the most stunning tattooed bodies of today. In her feature article, visual artist and writer Kim Eisele explores the  intimate connection between storytellers and tattoos, suggesting that both can help us redefine our relationship with ourselves and the world as we “step a little differently into the future.”
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