Friday, April 25, 2014

Center for Ray Bradbury Studies

What with posting here on Bradburymedia and posting on Facebook, and bits and pieces for various other websites I contribute to, it's easy to lose track of what information I have posted where. Yesterday I realised I hadn't posted anything here about my latest visit to the Center for Ray Bradbury Studies, Indianapolis. I spent three weeks there during March/April, and could have done with three or four more.

This is what I wrote about my visit on my Facebook page. Apologies if this seems familiar (especially to anyone reading this blog post on Facebook, who may have already seen this before...):

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Just finishing up after three weeks spent at the Center for Ray Bradbury Studies in Indianapolis. For the final phase of my PhD research I was given unique access to the new materials recently shipped to the Center: the manuscripts and other materials from Ray Bradbury's basement office.

This photo shows just one drawer of one cabinet. There are 31 cabinets, and I browsed every one, checking and annotating the Center's inventory as I went.

There are also dozens and dozens of boxes, but three weeks isn't enough to have looked through those.

I found what I was looking for, and much much more. But every drawer was a surprise. Just when you think you know the works of Ray Bradbury, you discover ANOTHER variation on a familiar work. I lost count of the number of adaptations of DANDELION WINE, and the number of screenplay versions of THE FOX AND THE FOREST.

Some time in the next couple of years, these materials will be fully catalogued and made accessible to researchers, but for now they are in temporary storage. I am enormously grateful to Prof Jon Eller for allowing me such privileged access while the materials are still in this state.

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If you haven't already found me on Facebook, please seek me out here.

I'm also managing the Facebook page for the Center for Ray Bradbury Studies, which you can find here. Please visit, and "like" our new page!

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