Whether you think of him as the Godfather to Black Mirror or you know him as the

author of Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury is one of America's

undisputed short story masters.

I'm Meg Walitzer, and this week on selected shorts we celebrate a hundred years of Bradbury with

another big dreamer, the writer Neil Gaiman.

Stay right where you are. And the You're listening to selected shorts where our greatest actors transport us through the magic of fiction, one short story at a time.

Writer Ray Bradbury had a vast imagination.

Often he created work such as the Martian Chronicles and Fahrenheit 451 that played

with big fantastical premises.

He also wrote realistic works, including dandelion wine, which touched on childhood and small town life with

loving detail.

Regardless of his idiom, though, Bradbury knew that substance needed to Trump style. His stories, no matter how wild or complex,

were always designed to hook the audience and keep them. And as a show keenly aware of literary

anniversaries, selected Shorts was very much looking forward to Bradbury's centennial.

The host of our recent Ray Bradbury celebration Neil Gaiman elaborated from the stage at Symphony Space.

We're here to celebrate the life and the work

and one of the great storytellers, the late novelist, the screenwriter, the poet, the short story writer, Ray Bradbury. Ray Bradbury.

Ray Bradbury was born in 1920 and he died in 2012 at the age of 91.

We planned this tribute for what would have been Ray's Centennial, but as it turned out,

the year 2020 presented challenges in regard to gathering together in large groups and celebrating anything.

There were many things that I was heartbroken about, many things that made me sad in 2020, but not being able to be

on this stage, having to actually cancel the event, really hurt and that here we are three years later able to celebrate

...