In a career spanning more than seventy years, Ray Bradbury (1920 – 2012) inspired generations of readers to dream, think, and create. A prolific author of hundreds of short stories and close to fifty books, as well as numerous poems, essays, operas, plays, teleplays, and screenplays, Bradbury was one of the most celebrated writers of our time. His groundbreaking works include Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, Dandelion Wine, and Something Wicked This Way Comes. He wrote the screenplay for John Huston's classic film adaptation of Moby Dick and was nominated for an Academy Award. He adapted sixty-five of his stories for television's The Ray Bradbury Theater and won an Emmy for his teleplay of The Halloween Tree. Bradbury was the recipient of the 2000 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, the 2004 National Medal of Arts, and the 2007 Pulitzer Prize Special Citation, among many honors.
Neil Gaiman is the New York Times bestselling and award-winning author and creator of books, graphic novels, short stories, film, and television for all ages, including Norse Mythology, Neverwhere, Coraline, The Graveyard Book, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, and The View from the Cheap Seats. His fiction has received Newbery, Carnegie, Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, and Will Eisner Awards. American Gods, based on the 2001 novel, is now a critically acclaimed, Emmy-nominated TV series, and he was the writer and showrunner for the mini-series adaptation of Good Omens, season 1 & 2, based on the book he co-authored with Sir Terry Pratchett. Gaiman was an Executive Producer and co-showrunner for Netflix’s TV adaptation of his Sandman comic book series. He is currently developing a TV adaptation of Anansi Boys. In 2017 Gaiman became a Global Goodwill Ambassador for UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency. Originally from England, he now divides his time between Scotland, where Good Omens and Anansi Boys are filmed, and the United States, where he is a Professor in the Arts at Bard College. He is a fellow of The Royal Society of Literature.
Jin Ha’s stage credits include Here We Are, Hamilton: An American Musical, and M. Butterfly. On screen, Ha has been seen in Civil War, Pachinko, DEVS, Love Life, and Jesus Christ Superstar: Live in Concert. Ha is an alumnus of the NYU Graduate Acting program.
Daniel Lavery is a writer whose next book, Women's Hotel, will be published in October, 2024.
Meg Wolitzer is the New York Times bestselling author of The Female Persuasion, The Interestings, The Ten-Year Nap, and The Wife, which was adapted to film in 2018, starring Glenn Close and Jonathan Pryce. She was the guest editor of The Best American Short Stories 2017, and has also published books for young readers, mostly recently a picture book, Millions of Maxes. Wolitzer is a faculty member in the MFA program at Stony Brook Southampton, where she co-founded and co-directs BookEnds, a one-year, non-credit intensive in the novel.
CREDITS
“On the Sudden Increase of Changeling Stock: A Report,” by Daniel Lavery. Commissioned by Symphony Space. Copyright © 2023 by Daniel Lavery and Symphony Space.
Read with permission of Ray Bradbury Literary Works LLC and Don Congdon Associates, Inc. “Homecoming” © 1946, renewed 1974 by Ray Bradbury.