Bradbury Visit!

[grace86]

Oddly enough, Ray Bradbury is making a visit to my small city tomorrow evening!

He will be speaking about his book Farenheit 451 and signing his books. How cool is that?!

Hopefully I can still cram my way among the people for admission.

Just curious...how many of you all have met an established author before? This will be my first time.

[Niamh]

I've met a few Irish Authors before, mainly chicklit writers though!(come in to sign their books in my job) But i did recently see Alexander MacCall Smith! Aparently i aske John Connelly something once in one of our shops and didnt realise it was him until he asked me for signed by the author stickers. Think it was just before he brought out The Book of Lost Things.
I also was Talking to Michael Barrymore when he came in to sign his biography.

[liesl]

i've met Terry Deary, the author of horrible histories, as a child and got my book signed. unfortunately the book got a bit worn and my mum threw it out
:(

i also met pete from big brother *rolls eyes* because my friend needed moral support to get his autobiography signed.

[grace86]

I've met a few Irish Authors before, mainly chicklit writers though!(come in to sign their books in my job) But i did recently see Alexander MacCall Smith! Aparently i aske John Connelly something once in one of our shops and didnt realise it was him until he asked me for signed by the author stickers. Think it was just before he brought out The Book of Lost Things.
I also was Talking to Michael Barrymore when he came in to sign his biography.

Oh wow, I would have liked to meet John Connelly, I just read that book recently.

[Niamh]

it was just recently up for an award at the Irish Book Awards. It is a very good book but because of its blatant plagerism i dont think it should have been up for an award.

[kathycf]

Tom Wolfe spoke at my college years ago about the writing process. He said hello to students afterward and answered questions. Plus, he nodded hello at me. :lol:

[mtpspur]

In 1977 I attended Pulpcon at Akron Oh and gushed away at Walter B. Gibson, writer of the Shadow pulp stories. He took the Smith and Street Publications concept and gave it flesh and bones. He wrote 282 out of the 325 issues and the first revival story from 1963(?). He would have have been about 80 years by then (The Shadow was 1931-1949) and he was most gracious. Sadly I have no picture of him but I still have one autographed book-even worse not a Shadow--those went bye-bye during a periodic attempt to avoid bankruptcy (1987). Saw but did not speak to Leigh Brackett at same convention.

[grace86]

The Bradbury lecture went very well. I managed to come out with three books signed. Only one of them was an old edition though (The Martian Chronicles - First Edition), the other two, Fahrenheit 451 and Dandelion Wine were new.

It was amazing to listen to him speak. He associated all his successes with the fact that the reason they were successes was that they happened by doing what he loved. I did not know he was in a wheelchair now, but he plans on writing for the next fourteen years at least (He's 86 now and has plans to write until he is at least one hundred - optimistic).

I was disappointed to see that not many young people attended the lecture...most of those who did only did so because the high school was giving out extra credit.

[mtpspur]

Sad to say but unfortunately Bradbury is considered 'old fashioned' nowadays. A shame since he paved the way for SF to be respectable to be caught reading.

[kathycf]

I guess if you love what you do, it shows in the quality of your work. I tend to agree with mtpspur, that Bradbury is considered old fashioned. I think that people think something is old and dismiss it as irrelevant, which is hardly true.

[Stieg]

Bradbury is an amazing author, but with the advent of hard SF, cyberpunk, and other variants of SF, yes, Bradbury is quite straightforward and conventional.

Yet, the difference, folks, Bradbury's are timeless classics. Alot of these new "hot" authors these days are lucky if they still remain popular after five years and lucky if their work is still remembered twenty years after the fact. Bradbury will never be forgotten.

Hey, did you know Sam Peckinpah signed at one time to direct Something Wicked This Way Comes (one of my favs). Bradbury asked Bloody Sam, "How will you do it, Sam?"

"Rip the pages out of your book and stuff them in the camera." Sam replied.

Bradbury pleased said, "Good."

But nothing came of it. And the film didn't see production until many years later directed by Jack Clayton and produced by Disney with a heap of dramatic changes and omissions.

I love Bradbury, he is wickedly funny and a brilliant writer.