At the age of 11, Ray Bradbury was writing stories on butcher paper. In 1938, his first story, "Hollerbochen's Dilemma," was published in Imagination! By 1943, he was writing full-time. The "Big Black and White Game" was selected as one of the Best American Short Stories in 1945. THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES, a book about the colonization of Mars by Earth, established Bradbury's reputation as a talented science-fiction writer. FAHRENHEIT 451, Bradbury's best-known work, addresses issues of censorship and totalitarianism via a fictional world in which all books are forbidden.
Ray Bradbury's work has been included in the Best American Short Story collections (1946, 1948, and 1952). He has been awarded the O. Henry Memorial Award, the Benjamin Franklin Award in 1954, the Aviation-Space Writer's Association Award for best space article in an American magazine in 1967, the World Fantasy Award for lifetime achievement, and the Grand Master Award from the Science Fiction Writers of America. His animated film about the history of flight, Icarus Montgolfier Wright, was nominated for an Academy Award, and his teleplay of The Halloween Tree won an Emmy. Bradbury received an unusual honor when an Apollo astronaut named a crater on the moon, Dandelion Crater, after his novel of that title.
Ray Bradbury died in June 2012.
