RIP, Mr. Bradbury, How You Still Light up the Stars for Us!

The young Ray

I am so very sad to hear that my favorite writer, mentor and inspiration died today. Ray Bradbury and his stories lit up my world so many years ago when I bought Martian Chronicles at a school book fair. Not just lit me up, but exploded my mind into a million synapses of burning delight. 
Part poet, part magician, and ever the inventive plot-meister, Ray wrote some of the best science fiction around. He was also an illustrator, and did cover art and interior spots for some of his own books. Something Wicked This Way Comes was a deliciously dark book about a carnival coming to town that was more sinister than the usual. (Don't you always suspect that clowns are perverse little demons? Think Killer Klowns from H*ll). His short story, "Fire Balloons" proves that not all summers are the same-old, same-old, but can transport young adults to a place of dreams. In Ray's words: "It's a story in which a number of priests fly off to Mars looking for creatures of good will. It is my tribute to those summers when my grandfather was alive. One of the priests was like my grandpa, whom I put on Mars to see the lovely balloons again, but this time they were Martians, all fired and bright, adrift above a dead sea." To read his whole piece, click here. It's in the June issue of The New Yorker, all devoted to sci-fi! Pick this issue up, it's totally worth the $.

One of Ray's Illustrations

Ray's list of classics is way too long to list here. But mention the title Farenheit 451 and you know how influential he was, and still is. This book is a cautionary tale about how important it is to protect books, and intellectual thinking. It's read in high schools across the country.

My favorite, forever is The Martian Chronicles. I have a version in Russian and French and wherever I travel I pick one up. (MC in Turkish, here we come!) This is the one that first lit my head on fire. His prose poetry still reigns supreme in passages like this: "Mr. and Mrs. K had the fair, brownish skin of the true Martian, the yellow coin eyes, the soft, musical voices. Once they had liked painting pictures with chemical fire, swimming in the canals in the seasons when the wine trees filled them with green liquors, and talking into the dawn together by the blue, phosphorous portraits in the speaking room. They were not happy now." Why? They sensed the coming of the humans from Earth is why!

I could go on and on but I'll leave you with some great links:
For a book containing his illustrations, Bradbury, an Illustrated Life, by Jerry Weist.
For more on Ray's life and work, read today's article on io9, the coolest online SF mag. Click here.
New addition, Obama weighs in on Ray here. Who ever said Obama wasn't a smart guy?!

Mr. Bradbury, I just know you can hear us crying down here, and you're probably saying, "Don't sweat it, folks, I'm having the time of my life in the stratosphere, drinking up virtual Dandelion Wine." So, let's all toast to invention, to Ray Bradbury and his wonderful works.

Water from the Magical Well

I slogged through mountains of snow last night to hear Alice Hoffman read and talk about writing. I almost didn’t make it uptown, worrying that leaping over filthy pools of slush in my leaking UGGs was too treacherous. But a voice inside me kept saying, “Go, go, go. You have to go.” I’m so glad I listened! Why, you ask? First, let me backtrack.

I used to inhale Hoffman books. Here on Earth, her homage to Wuthering Heights was a favorite. And Fortune’s Daughter, examining pregnancy, birth and loss through two sisters: one a fortuneteller who lost her only child, the other, awaiting the birth of her first child, was another treat. Practical Magic, which was made into a film, involves the Owens girls, two orphaned women whose aunts were witches. The girls are blamed for every freaky incident in their small town.

When I got older and went back to get my MFA in creative writing, and I started to write for children, I noticed a phenomenon. Authors of adult fiction, who already had big careers, like Joyce Carol Oates, and, oh no, my old fave, Alice Hoffman, were publishing YAs. The MFA buzz was that this was almost as suspect as celebrities who assume they can pen a picture book and get published immediately because they're already famous. Publishers know, therefore, they’ll have an automatic bestseller.

The YA market was already reaching a glut. In MFA programs, there was additional snobbery. Anyone who made it into Oprah’s book Club, or had their book commissioned into a film, was selling out their raw talent. So, so misguided, I say now.
For one thing, MFA programs should not neglect to teach the importance of the market. I teach my students not to be a slave to it, but to be aware of it. Number two, any club or society that pushes books and literacy is gold, what with the distractions of the Net. So, more power to Oprah and her Book Club. Even Lord Franzen has capitulated with his newest novel, Freedom.

Okay, getting back to why seeing and hearing Ms. Hoffman was so auspicious for me, My work-in-progress is magical realism. And Ms. Magic herself, the amazing Alice, has been exploring this for years—before there was ever a girl named Stephanie Meyers, before the zillion vampire paranormalists bit the public’s fancy. Hey, did I just make up the word paranormalists, or what? I also learned, last night that she was writing books for kids all along, in between her other work. So, I stand chastened.

Hoffman’s early influences were Grimms, and Singer, and that master of prose poetry, the impish sideshow gremlin, Ray Bradbury.

Ray Bradbury was one of my earliest inspirations. His words dive-bombed off the page and straight into my stunned synapses. Dandelion Wine and Something Wicked This Way Comes and just about any novel the man wrote had this effect on me. Phillip K Dick might be the master of sci-fi plot. But Bradbury is still, at 90-something, King Poet of weird. The guy can draw too!

So, hearing Alice Hoffman read from her latest creation, The Red Garden, I was smitten all over again—a garden where only red things sprout. Imagine! She's not a flash in the pan. She’s been spinning gold for a good 30-something years. Now, that’s true magic. I’m reading her again, even those YA, tween and picture books.

I can’t wait to learn more from the master.
Who's your great inspiration?