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Hello friends,
The holidays are quickly approaching, and I’m sure that many of us are looking forward to seeing loved ones—whether they be blood relatives or members of our chosen family.
You’ll find family to be the focus of this month’s newsletter. Before we dive into that, I want to let you all know that Ray Bradbury was inducted into the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame earlier this month. I had the honor of speaking about Ray Bradbury’s life and amazing career and accepting the Fuller Award on behalf of the late Ray Bradbury and his family.
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Dr. Jason Aukerman, (photographed in the center) Director of the Ray Bradbury Center at IUPUI received the award on the Bradbury family’s behalf. Photo Credit: Don Seely
The Bradbury family generously gifted this award to the Ray Bradbury Center, where it now resides alongside many of Ray’s other prestigious awards and mementos. We hope that you’ll be able to visit the Ray Bradbury Center sometime in the near future to see this and many of our other Ray Bradbury treasures in person.
By Dr. Jason Aukerman, Director of the Ray Bradbury Center
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You’ve heard of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. But there’s another day you need to know about… Giving Tuesday!
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During this time of year when we all spend so much time and money buying gifts for the holidays, Giving Tuesday is an opportunity to celebrate the spirit of the season by giving to your favorite non-profit.
So this year on November 29th, please consider giving a donation to the Ray Bradbury Center. This will help us with preservation supplies, community outreach, and fund programs for 2023.
Click here to donate to the Ray Bradbury Center.
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Recent Donations to the Ray Bradbury Center
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Chicago Literary Hall of Fame Award, 2021. Donated by Ray Bradbury Estate.
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Signed books from Ray Bradbury and vintage Bradbury editions. Donated by Dr. John Tibbetts.
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The Martian Chronicles: The Complete Edition - Deluxe Hardcover Edition, 5 copies. Donated by Subterranean Press.
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Drummer Boy of Shiloh and Illustrated Man (film outline), original carbon copies. Donated by David Ritter.
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Coye Lloyd is a friend of the Ray Bradbury Center who has a deep love of horror and all things creepy and/or gory. When not managing a coffee shop, she loves to watch silly movies, think about updating her website coyelloyd.com, and keep up with celebrity gossip.
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READ
I’ve been on the Chuck Klosterman fan train since Sex, Drugs, and Cocoapuffs. His most recent work, The Nineties, taps into a fountain of nostalgia. He has a knack for recalling collective memories you thought only you and your pop-soaked mind remembered. It reinforces the notion that pop culture IS culture and it’s a driving force in all our lives.
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WATCH
On the 4 hour plane ride to Portland I was able to watch sleazy teen slasher Bodies Bodies Bodies!
It was fun to watch those crazed rich kids get weird and then weirder. It highlights the old wounds of friendship in very literal and dynamic (often hilarious!) ways.
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LISTEN
Oh man, I’m listening to a lot of both music and podcasts! I’m obsessed with new kid on the block GloRilla, her brassy southern flow and rhythm makes me happy.
The podcast Throughline keeps excelling in carefully detailed storytelling, tricking their listener into gaining a wider, more informed perspective on, like, everything.
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Fun Facts From the Archives
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Family is often chosen without blood ties. That same connection explains how the Ray Bradbury Center’s vast collection ended up not in Ray Bradbury’s longtime home of Los Angeles, California or even his childhood hometown of Waukegan, Illinois, but in Indianapolis, Indiana. Among the holdings in the archive are three biographies: Becoming Ray Bradbury, Ray Bradbury Unbound, and Bradbury Beyond Apollo, written by esteemed Bradbury scholar, Dr. Jonathan Eller.
Dr. Eller got to know Ray Bradbury during his service at the United States Air Force Academy when he was assigned to escort the VIP author around the campus. The two forged a familial relationship from that chance visit, which not only afforded Dr. Eller the opportunity to conduct extensive interviews for these three biographies, but also brought both Dr. Eller and, ultimately, the important holdings of the Ray Bradbury estate to the campus of IUPUI.
This sense of familial friendship and trust extended to the Bradbury daughters—who gifted their father’s home office artifacts and a lifetime of mementos and awards to the Center—and to Donn Albright—Bradbury’s longtime friend and principal bibliographer—who worked closely with Jon during his Bradbury visits and subsequently gifted to the Center the papers and books that Ray Bradbury had left to him when he passed away.
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Did You Know?
The Ray Bradbury Center has 616 fan letters! Two examples below include a fan writing to Bradbury for a second time and another that included an original watercolor drawing on a paper towel!
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By Nancy Orem, Lead Archivist
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“Grand-da,” said Tom… “Do I worry you?”
“No.” Then the old man added, “But what life will do with you, how you may be treated, good or ill – I sit up late with that.” – Ray Bradbury, “The Better Part of Wisdom”
The holidays are a time for family. Whether that family is blood-related or part of a more extended found family, this is the time to reach out and check in, invite loved ones over, share stories and connect with each other. When we don’t know what life will do with our loved ones, we can be the harbor from the storm, offering a life preserver of understanding and a tether of connection.
By Kylie Adkins
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