Sam Weller's Blog, page 4

Presentations, Book Signings, Workshops and Sharing the Life Fantastic

My touring schedule for 2016 includes talks on Fahrenheit 451 and the amazing man behind the seminal masterpiece. Along the way, I’ll be sharing anecdotes about my long relationship with Ray Bradbury at high schools and colleges and libraries. Often times a community will bring me in for a string of events over several days. I also conduct 3-hour writing workshops utilizing Ray Bradbury’s singular and inspiring creative process. I never tire of sharing my love of Bradbury, his life and his work. I never tire of inspiring and helping writers achieve their creative goals. If you are interested in booking me for a presentation, workshop or book signing, please contact mr.electrico@comcast.net.

Love Letter on a Birthday

At almost every talk or book signing I do, someone emerges from the crowd holding an envelope or a sheet of paper, or, sometimes, a picture frame with a letter behind the glass. I know immediately what it is.

It is a letter from Ray Bradbury.

The first time I interviewed Ray Bradbury in May 2000, before becoming his authorized biographer and writing four books, I asked him about the amount of mail he got each day. He told me that he received, on average, 300 letters a week. And he went on to explain that he answered most.

“You have to respond when someone writes you a love letter,” he stated.

Now, all these years later, as I travel to colleges, universities and libraries around the country, I see these letters he wrote, brought back to me like a boomerang. There is the unmistakable letterhead, the typewritten note on his IBMselectric, and the wide, childlike signature.

The people who come to my presentations are always so proud. They want to share these keepsakes with me. And the letters themselves are never form letters. They are always personal and giving. Very often writers wrote to him seeking advice. He loved to mentor them. In many ways, this was as important to him as writing itself.

“What advice would you give me?” they asked.

“Make a list of ten things you love, and write an essay, short story or poem about each one,” he often instructed. He did this himself. He wrote about saving books, about dinosaurs, about Mars, about his boyhood town. He took his own advice.

Ray Bradbury was a rare literary legend. He was patient and generous with his time and forever encouraging of others and their literary aspirations. I think this is because he never forgot the young writer he once was—the young writer with hopes and dreams of literary greatness.

He often joked about the hubris he had when, at the age of 17, he was asked to put some words underneath his yearbook photo.

Likes to write stories

Admired as a Thespian

Headed for literary distinction.

He never forgot that young writer. And so when fledgling writers approached him or wrote him, he always took care to encourage them. He was never a jealous writer. He always believed there was room for us all at the party.

And so on this, his 95th birthday, I think about all the gifts he gave to all the writers around the world who turned to him for wisdom. He lives on in all of those people who wrote him a love letter and he replied.

Thank you to twitter friend @ajvw13 for the inspiration for this birthday post.

IDW Shadow Show page

IDW has created a beautiful web page for the Shadow Show comic series. And for those who have inquired, the five-issue run will be released as a trade paperback this summer.

Shadow Show the Comic Book Series

When Shadow Show came out in June of 2012, Chris Ryall, the President of IDW Comics, immediately expressed interest in turning it into a comic book series with a trade paperback to follow. Of course, Ray Bradbury always had a deep-rooted connection to comics. My Shadow Show co-editor Mort Castle and I felt that the stories in our anthology lent themselves to comics and so we agreed to sign on with IDW. The enthusiasm the company showed, and the quality of their publications made this a no-brainer. I’m pleased to say that the first two issues are now on the stands at a fine comic book retailer near you. The series will run for five issues and for a kid who grew up reading the work of John Byrne, Frank Miller and Bob Layton, this is a glorious dream. Here are the covers for the first four issues of the Shadow Show series:

Happy Birthday, Ray

Today would have been Ray Bradbury’s 94th birthday. The man wanted desperately to live to 100. I wish that could have happened. He had so much he still wanted to do. I have never known anyone more appreciate of life, than Ray. He lived his days with soaring gratitude.

In our twelve-years working together on three books, over countless dinners and long car rides and laughter through a thousand hours of conversation, the man taught me many, many life-lessons. As I reflect on the multitude of these wisdoms, one thing stands out.

Love.

Love completely. Love fully. Be reckless in your passion for those things that make you feel alive and good. Write about them. Celebrate them. Hold them. Cherish them. Pick them up. Twirl them. Imagine them. Dream them. Let your loves consume you. Let your loves become you. Allow yourself to be madly and totally and completely in love. With life, with ideas, with art, with stories, with people.

“Do what you love, and love what you do,” he always said to me. “If you do that, success and happiness will have no choice but to follow.”

He has been gone now over two years. That’s almost unthinkable to me. It was 94-years ago today that he came into this world and changed it forever. If he were still here, I would have but one thing to say to him, immediately:

I Love You.

Thank you for all you gave to me Ray. Happy Birthday.

Newcity Chicago Lit 50

Happy to once again make the prestigious “Lit 50″ list published by the Chicago alt. weekly, Newcity. The “Lit 50″ is a round-up of the 50 people “who really book in Chicago.” I landed at #28 on the list–a list that includes Stuart Dybek, Gillian Flynn, and my friend Audrey Niffenegger among others. What an honor! Great photos, too, by the phenomenal Joe Mazza of BraveLux.

Roadside Cross

My new short story, “Roadside Cross” was published by Amazon.com’s new digital publishing imprint, Story Front, on March 12. The story is available for Kindles and iPads (Amazon for ipad app). “Roadside Cross” is steeped in the tradition of Ray Bradbury’s classic collection, The October Country. It’s a modern, Midwest gothic tale of mystery and melancholy that poses the question, do ghosts mourn the dead?

If you read the story and enjoy it, please do me a quick favor and leave a review.

I have two more short stories slated for publication in the Chicago Tribune Printer’s Row Journal on May 25. “Weird” is about a little boy who becomes obsessed with the 1970s cult film, Harold and Maude, and “A Song for My Father” is about a once popular jazz musician who gets a chance to redeem his fading career in a ballroom in the middle of 1953 Iowa. I hope you will pick these stories up.

The Bradbury Chronicles updated

It’s been eight years since the publication of my first biography of Ray Bradbury. The Bradbury Chronicles: The Life of Ray Bradbury is finally available as an ebook. The new edition features ten new photographs, some never-before-seen, as well as a new epilogue chapter.

Brand Spankin’ New Short Story

I recently wrote a short story for the punk rock literary journal, Criminal Class Review. I have always had great admiration for the ethos and aesthetic of the magazine’s Editor, Kevin Whiteley, so it was cool to be able to partner up with the man for a story in Volume 6.

“The Peephole” is a 1970s New York punk rock thriller. I have always had a secret attraction to the scuzzy side of ‘70s-era New York—all Ed Koch graffiti slathered dirty triple XXX birth place of glam and punk and rat infested Times Square. I was deeply honored when a reader called the story “Bradbury meets Hitchcock meets Chandler,” because this is what I set out to write all wrapped up in the Bronx, circa 1974.

Even cooler: the print edition of Criminal Class Review Volume 6 sold out in very short order. The issue was guest edited by the great George Tabb, writer for Maximum Rock n Roll, founding member of the punk/hardcore band Roach Motel, and tireless voice behind the health issues plaguing those who lived in lower Manhattan on September 11, 2001.

I was listening to a lot of old ‘70s New York punk and new wave when I wrote “The Peephole” and I hope that some of the vibe of that time comes through in the story.

And while the print edition for the collectors market is already gone, the good news is that volume 6 of Criminal Class is available here: