The great writer Ray Bradbury (photo ©Caleb Sconosciuto) died last night.

Ray Douglas Bradbury was born on August 22, 1920, in Waukegan, Illinois. His family moved to California in 1934, and there the young Ray discovered science fiction.

During his youth, Ray Bradbury was an avid reader of stories of various types, but after graduating from high school, he didn’t go to college. Bradbury stated that he believed in libraries, not in universities.

In the late ’30s, Ray Bradbury started publishing science fiction stories in various fanzines. In the ’40s, he began selling stories to pulp magazines.

In 1950, Ray Bradbury published the series of short stories that formed “The Martian Chronicles” in a single anthology. At the time, they were considered science fiction, but the author didn’t seek scientific realism, and not surprisingly, they gave him fame far beyond the boundaries of this genre.

In 1951, Ray Bradbury published the story “The Fireman”, which was later expanded into the novel “Fahrenheit 451”. It’s a dystopian story that’s considered one of the great Bradbury’s masterpieces. In 1966, this novel was adapted into a film directed by François Truffaut.

During his career, Ray Bradbury wrote a few other novels by combining elements of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. He was primarily a writer of short fiction, so much so that, for example, “Dandelion Wine” (1957) is actually formed by fixing up some previously published short stories.

Ray Bradbury wrote the screenplay for the animated TV movie in 1993, “The Halloween Tree”, which included Leonard Nimoy in its cast. Bradbury won the Emmy Award for that screenplay.

In 1977, Ray Bradbury received the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement Award. In 2004, he received the National Medal of Arts. In 2008, he received the Science Fiction Poetry Association Grandmaster Award. He also received other awards, such as the Stoker Award for life achievement and the SFWA Grand Master.

In 1947, Ray Bradbury married Marguerite McClure, who died in 2003. Together, they had four daughters. In 1999, he had a stroke and was confined to a wheelchair, but he kept on working and supported the cause of space exploration.

Ray Bradbury was an extraordinary writer who helped science fiction get out of a sort of ghetto, but any label bound to a specific genre is too tight for him. Let’s just say he was a great writer and poet.