Ray Bradbury at 29

{from epegana, Terence McVicker}

the FANSCIENT Winter, 1949

Offered here is an autobiography of Ray Bradbury written just before the publication of his 2nd book - "The Illustrated Man"

... "I was born in 1920, on August 22nd in the town of Waukeegan, Illinois while my brother and father were attending a baseball game on the other side of town ...I was neither a brilliant nor a moronic student...when I was eight years old a boxcar pimply girl of eighteen gave me a copy of Wonder or Amazing, I cannot remember which, but I cannot forget the thrill!...I wrote several sequels to Burroughs Martian series on a toy dial typewriter when I was thirteen. It was the depression and there was little money to buy books. The simple solution seemed to be to write them myself...in 1937 I bought a typewriter for ten dollars and started sending stories to "Wonder" and "Weird Tales"...year after year I got rejection slips, from 1938 until 1941...finally I sold three stories in 1941, six in 1942 and seemed to double every year...I purposely do NOT read Science Fiction or Fantasy stories, not out of snobbery, but only to assure myself that I do not unwittingly plagiarize some other person's ideas". This is a five page autobiographette with a nice photograph of the 29 year old author. Much, much valuable information including early influences and helpers.

I do not think that this has been reprinted. Also contains "The ages of fan" - a long humorous piece by Robert Bloch. Chapbook sized fanzine, excellently presented!