The Bradbury Beat

(1) A Ray Bradbury signed letter on Fahrenheit 451 stationery is available on eBay for $350. Bradbury wrote the letter in 1967 to a correspondent identified only as Norman, mentoring him about writing and zine publishing. That advice includes:

Never sell ANY book without an agent!! Never. Repeat: Never!

Also —

….Why didn’t you do over that page in CALLIOPE rather than send it out the way it was? Very sloppy. Unforgiveable, in fact. Someone should criticise you, and, I take it, you want my frank opinion. I would never have sent out a magazine, when I was 19 and mimeoing my own fan mag, with a page badly mimeo’d or missing.

(2) Tomorrow, November 14, at Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena is the ”Artist on the Stairwell” event with George Cwirko-Godycki

Join us as we celebrate our newest Artist on the Stairwell! Illustrator George Cwirko-Godycki presents a limited edition poster show inspired by the works of Ray Bradbury. The show is the first in Vroman’s Artists on Authors series in the stairwell where visionary artists interpret the works of renowned authors.  The first 25 attendees will receive a signed catalog of the exhibition that details the process of creating this unique show from start to finish.George is based in San Francisco where he provides concept illustration for the entertainment industry and teaches figure drawing at the Academy of Art University.

Starts at 2:00 p.m., at 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101.

(3) PBS’ Blank on Blank series includes “Ray Bradbury on Madmen.”

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian and Martin Morse Wooster for these stories.]

3 thoughts on “The Bradbury Beat

  1. I did some searching for the identity of Norman, but came up empty. The letter indicates he was the publisher or contributor to a fanzine called Calliope and might have been 19 when he wrote to Bradbury. But I couldn’t find any evidence of a 1960s fanzine by that title.

  2. rcade: Yes, when I wrote the post I checked the UC and U Iowa collections and ISFDB without finding a trace of Calliope.

    It’s interesting to me to look at this 1967 exchange and recall that two years later I sent Bradbury my own sloppily mimeoed fanzine and a note asking for a contribution — and he even sent me a poem to reprint.

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