As Steve mentioned in Good Morning News, Ray Bradbury died yesterday at the age of 91. The internet is buzzing with tributes; at the top of the must-read list is the Paris Review’s “Art of Fiction” interview with Bradbury—an initial interview was conducted in the 1970s, the first draft of which George Plimpton apparently found “overly enthusiastic,” and it was finished a couple years ago:
INTERVIEWER
Does science fiction satisfy something that mainstream writing does not?
BRADBURY
Yes, it does, because the mainstream hasn’t been paying attention to all the changes in our culture during the last fifty years. The major ideas of our time—developments in medicine, the importance of space exploration to advance our species—have been neglected. The critics are generally wrong, or they’re fifteen, twenty years late. It’s a great shame. They miss out on a lot. Why the fiction of ideas should be so neglected is beyond me. I can’t explain it, except in terms of intellectual snobbery.
The Atlantic recalls rejecting the short story that became Fahrenheit 451.
Here’s a keynote address he gave in 2001, which Open Culture distills down to 12 pieces of advice for young authors.
Bradbury’s got a piece in the new sci-fi issue of the New Yorker.
And then, of course, my favorite video ever made, by Bradbury superfan Rachel Bloom:
I thought he died years ago.
I thought you were in Federal prison.