Ray Bradbury never lost the abiding curiosity about humanity’s future on earth and in space that began when he was a child reading Flash Gordon comics and the stories of Edgar Rice Burroughs. On August 27, Zócalo Public Square, Fowler Museum at UCLA, and ZYZZYVA will bring together author Lilliam Rivera, Arizona State University Center for Science and the Imagination professor Michael Bennett, and Jonathan R. Eller, Director of the Center for Ray Bradbury Studies at Indiana University for a virtual discussion. The panel will discuss the lessons Bradbury’s work offers about a present that has surprising and sometimes sobering similarities to the futures he imagined in his fiction. Oscar Villalon, managing editor at ZYZZYVA, moderates. ZYZZYVA will be publishing “The Pedestrian,” the 1951 short story inspired by the same late night encounter with police that grew into Fahrenheit 451, in their fall issue.
Zócalo Public Square, Fowler Museum at UCLA, & ZYZZYVA host discussion: “Are We Living in a World Ray Bradbury Tried to Prevent?”
