Two other highly personal works, Dandelion Wine (1957) and Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962), also exemplify his belief that writing should come from a writer’s own philosophy and from his or her own experiences. These novels are set in fictitious Green Town—which is, in reality, Bradbury’s hometown of Waukegan, Illinois. The ravine described in both books is located on Yeoman Creek, and the library, which is an important setting in Something Wicked This Way Comes, was once located on Waukegan’s Sheridan Road.
Today, Bradbury lives in Los Angeles, is a Sunday painter, and collects Mexican artifacts. He is still actively writing and lecturing most often on college campuses. He has four grown daughters and several grandchildren. Among Bradbury’s latest works are Death Is a Lonely Business (1985), The April Witch (1987), Death Has Lost Its Charm (1987), The Toynbee Convector (1988), Graveyard for Lunatics (1990), Folon’s Folons (1990), Zen in the Art of Writing: Essays on Creativity (1991), A Chrestomathy of Ray Bradbury: A Dramatic Selection (1991), Yestermorrow: Obvious Answers to Impossible Futures (1991), Green Shadows, White Whale (1992), The Stars (1993), Quicker Than The Eye (1996), Driving Blind (1997), Dogs Think That Every Day Is Christmas (1997), and With Cat for Comforter (1997).
Honors and Achievements
In addition to Bradbury’s many books and his hundreds of short stories, works such as The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, Fahrenheit 451, The Illustrated Man, and Something Wicked This Way Comes have been made into major motion pictures. In addition, Bradbury has written for television, radio, and the theater.
Ray Bradbury's work was included in the Best American Short Story collections (1946, 1948, and 1952). He was 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. Since 1985, he adapted forty-two of his short stories for The Ray Bradbury Television Theater on USA Cable.
Ray Bradbury's writing has been honored in many ways, but perhaps the most unusual way was when an Apollo astronaut named the Dandelion Crater on the Moon after Bradbury's novel, Dandelion Wine.
Outside of his literary achievements, Ray Bradbury was the idea consultant and wrote the basic scenario for the United States Pavilion at the 1964 New York World's Fair. He conceived the metaphors for Spaceship Earth, EPCOT, Disney World, and he contributed to the conception of the Orbitron space ride at Euro-Disney, France. He was a creative consultant for the Jon Jerde Partnership, the architectural firm that blueprinted the Glendale Galleria, The Westside Pavilion in Los Angeles, and Horton Plaza in San Diego.
In a field that thrives on the fantastic and the marvelous, Ray Bradbury's best stories celebrate the everyday; in a field preoccupied with the future, Bradbury’s vision is firmly rooted in the past. This particular style is evident from the influence of his childhood on his writing (Dandelion Wine and Something Wicked This Way Comes), as well as from growing up in Illinois. Widely regarded as the most important figure in the development of science fiction as a literary genre, Ray Bradbury's work evokes the themes of racism, censorship, technology, nuclear war, humanistic values, and the importance of imagination.
Clearly, Bradbury kept his promise to Mr. Electrico. He did become a magician, using his pen as a magic wand to transport his readers into wondrous situations. Bradbury himself attests to this fact in an article appearing in the 1952 Ray Bradbury Review. He says that he simply transferred his “methods of magic from the stage to a sheet of Eaton’s Bond paper—for there is something of the magician in every writer, flourishing his effects and making his miracles.”
