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I am so thrilled to share this interview with Amy Jones, the Editor-in-Chief of Writer’s Digest . I’ve worked with Amy for years, and wrote the “All About the Pitch” column for the magazine for 2 years. In this informative conversation Amy covers everything a writer needs to know about writing for Writer’s Digest and shares her interests, favorite interviews with authors and what she (and her readers) learned.

In This Episode

Writer’s Digest’ s publication schedule
The niches that print and online cover
Writing and craft tips Amy has gleaned from novelists
The secret to a writer’s persistence, when being faced with rejection
Amy’s dream 2024 articles and pitches based on the Writer’s Digest editorial calendar
Where to send submissions
Paid subscribers to Estelle’s substack get to see even more from Amy Jones ( https://estelleserasmus.substack.com )

Watch on YouTube

About Amy Jones

Amy Jones is Editor-in-Chief of Writer’s Digest and the former managing content director for Writer’s Digest Books. She is the editor of the Novel and Short Story Writer’s Market and the Children’s Writer’s and Illustrator’s Market. Prior to joining the WD team, she was the managing editor for North Light Books and IMPACT Books. She also spent time producing instructional videos for ArtistsNetworkTV. Like most WD staffers, Amy is a voracious reader and has a particular interest in literary fiction, historical fiction, page-turning mysteries, and steamy romance. She volunteers for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and at Ohio Alleycat Resource, her local no-kill cat shelter.

Connect with Amy Jones

Connect with writer’s digest, connect with estelle.

Her website : (sign up for her newsletter and receive her pitching guide). Writing That Gets Noticed: Find Your Voice, Become a Better Storyteller, Get Published : Available wherever books are sold Adjunct Instructor, NYU ( Sign up for her latest classes, including her new NYU class called Writing That Gets Noticed, now appplicable for a journalism certificate ) Substack (craft tips, editor information, writing opportunities, early announcements and for paid subscribers special Freelance Writing Direct extended videos). Instagram X (formerly Twitter ) Threads Blue Sky

New Interviews

I loved speaking about my experiences working in publishing, and sharing craft advice with Bill Kenower for Author2Author.
I was also interviewed for the podcast Writers’ Voices: Estelle Erasmus Gives Great Advice in Writing That Gets Noticed

Freelance Writing Direct just had a birthday and is one year old!

My latest piece for Writer’s Diges t: What To Do to Maximize Your Launch Week and Get Your Book Noticed

Don’t miss my announcement that Writing That Gets Notice d is now a Journalism Course at NYU for the Journalism Certificate.

Don’t miss my latest substack issue called Beyond Craft to Publishing Confidential where I offer an extended version of my podcast interview with Kathleen Schmidt of Publishing Confidential for paid subscribers.

Estelle’s Podcast Appearances for Writing That Gets Noticed

My interview with the exuberant Bill Kenower on Author2Author , where we spoke about my experiences in publishing, and craft.
Writers’ Voices with Monica and Caroline : Estelle Erasmus Gives Great Advice in Writing That Gets Noticed
The Avid Reader on Writing That Gets Noticed in a conversation with Sam Hankin
Simply Write with Polly Campbell Editor, Author, Teacher Estelle Erasmus Talks Pitching and Publishing
The EmPOWERed Half Hour: Find Your Voice, Become a Better Storyteller, and Get Published with Award-Winning Journalist, Estelle S. Erasmus
Dr.Sheryl Ziegler’s Pod Couch Writing To Find Your Voice
Legacy Launch Pad with Anna David talking about Getting Articles Published and Landing An Agent
Wellness for Financial Grownups with Bobbi Rebell talking about How to Get Paid for Jobs You Do (And Sometimes Do) for Free with Author Estelle Erasmus
The Mom & Podcast Career Pauses, Pivots and Parlaying Your Skill Sets
Financially Well-Off From Careers to Publication: A Guide to Writing Success
Real Women’s Work Podcast: Writer, Writing Coach, Author of Writing That Gets Noticed

Connect with Estelle:

Her website : Sign up for her newsletter and receive her writing guide
Writing That Gets Noticed: Find Your Voice, Become a Better Storyteller, Get Published : Available wherever books are sold
Adjunct Instructor, NYU : Sign up for her latest classes
Her substack

Analyzing Essays
Freelance Writing Direct
Freelance Writing Direct Podcast
Publishing Tips
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Top Author Interview Sites

This blog was posted on September 18, 2017 by admin .

This blog was posted on September 18, 2017 by Deeba Salim Irfan .

“What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though.” ― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

How often have you wished you could have a chat with your favorite writer over a cup of coffee? How would it feel if you find yourself seated next to a great author, absorbed in thoughts over his new novel?You must have wished if you could “time travel” with your favorite author, wandering through memory lanes, making way through the labyrinth of life, diving into the deep seas of fantasy and yet coming out with a magnum opus. Well, author interviews are just like that. Author interviews are heart-to-talks with the person behind the creation, who is the invisible, yet very much present character (mostly, though not always), in the novel or story. You can ask questions, get inspired, and yes, also stay connected, (thanks to social networking sites) with authors of your choice.

Author interviews are a popular feature of many online magazines. Most of them are free for reading or listening. Some offer paid subscription for limited-edition interview. Some author interviews are conducted by the journalists, while sites like TheWriteScene has an author vs. author section. What is better than reading or listening to two authors speaking on their creative arts. A long flowing discourse between two authors often brings out latent ideas in the text; most of which came out as fruition of the author’s sub conscious mind. A comparative discussion of different works by two authors with related analogies makes for a rich literary discourse that is both informative and engaging. Here, we discuss some of the top players in the fray.

1 Writers and Authors:

Writers and Authors interviews writers, especially young writers, trying to carve a niche in the world of literary glitterati. The interviews, though mostly informal, and conversational in style, include questions on the popular works of the author, regarding his/her character creations, settings and themes. The author also tells us the history behind the first published work, interaction with the readers, rapport with literary agents and publishers.

Writers and Authors also lets us consider the author’s persona, his/her life in general, inspiration, and admired writers. The authors also give out advice to aspiring writers on getting published and other writing tips. The site also has links to connect to the author through social networking channels. The readers also get to know about related literary events in Writers and Authors. Being a registered member of Writers and Authors gives you free access to advice and guidance from literary agents, editors and authors.For more information on this, click https://www.writersandartists.co.uk/writers/a-writers-toolkit/interviews-with-authors.

2 The Paris Review:

The Paris Review is prolific website that features interviews of famous authors across the world. Every interview is preceded by a briefing on the author, followed by a long story like conversation with vivid details, anecdotal references, and opinionated discussions on various issues. The creative discourses between the writer and the interviewer in Paris Review, is usually conversational in style, meant for the erudite and intellectual reader. Targeted at the niche segment of literary agents, learned publishers and intelligentsia, the e-magazine is a long-standing player. The website also has a series of audio interviews of renowned writers.

Another good thing about Paris Review is its year-wise archival of interviews. So, you get to read interviews taken as early as 1950, to the most recently published ones. Paid subscription, which starts at $49/year and goes up to $125/ 2 years, gives you full access to author interviews and The Paris Review issues. Log on to https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews for more information on interviews.

3 Writer’s Digest:

Writer’s Digest publishes interviews of first-time authors trying to make it big at the literary world. The tone is informal and the content informative. You get to know about the author’s inspiration, source or raw material for writing, interest areas, and learning experiences throughout the publishing process. Writer’s Digest interviews are well suited for budding writers, helping them learn the tricks of the trade from fellow writers. The best part is, you can contact them through e-mail. Most writers in Writer’s Digest have their website, another learning area for today’s aspiring authors.

Learning about literary agents (how to find the best one and how to get the best deals) through shared experiences goes a long way in imbibing the much-required knowledge and fine tuning for successful publishing experience. Today’s writer is no less a celebrity than a sports star or actor. Apart from etching out a brilliant piece of work, one also needs to hone marketing skills for promotion, a must for breaking in. Newbies in the literary world get many useful tips on improving writing skills, presentation, self-promotion through digital means, and effective PR management, through author interviews and related articles in Writer’s Digest. For more information on this, click http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/guide-to-literary-agents/author-interviews.

4 BookPage:

BookPage , an online book review publication site, publishes interviews of renowned writers. The interviews are centered on a recent publication of the author and a deeper analysis of the author’s persona. The deep-delving discussions, more like a one-on-one interaction between the author and interviewer, follows a story-telling pattern, weaving the pieces of information about the writing in discussion, its settings, characters, as also the author’s personal sketch. The richness of language, languid descriptions, historical references, interspersed with authorial opinion on global issues, and upcoming writings make the interviews are a wholesome dose of edutainment. Some of the recently interviewed celebrity authors in BookPage include Salman Rushdie, Manoush Zomorodi, John Rocco, and Kamila Shamsie.

BookPage has readership of over 400,000and is distributed to more than 4000 subscribing bookstores and public libraries. You may also sign up for individual subscription of the 32-page printed monthly book reviews.Full interviews may also be downloaded over Kindle or Nook.Founded in 1988 and located in Nashville, Tennessee, BookPageis also immensely popular as a book review or study guide for new releases every month. If you like an interview, you may also share it with others, over social networking sites. Past interview issues are archived and may be downloaded or bought by subscribers. You may visit https://bookpage.com/interviews for more details on author interviews and subscription.

5 BookBrowse:

BookBrowse , an online magazine for booklovers publishes book reviews, articles, reading guides, and author interviews. Founded in 1997, by Davina & Paul Morgan-Witts, as an endeavor to start something like an information house for books, BookBrowse evolved into a twice-monthly online magazine, where you can read intriguing author interviews, along with backstories, book related news, and recommendations for book clubs. With a membership fee of $10 for 3 months or $35 for a year, you have access to a vast storehouse of information, free resources, and e-mail newsletter.

Author interviews in BookBrowse are good to read and inspiring for young and aspiring authors. The interviews usually begin with a biography of the author, and is soon followed by a series of questions. The questions are simple, and may range from the author’s background, source of inspiration, character sketches,and specific questions on prevailing themes, views about current literary trends, and favorite books and writers.

BookBrowse impresses us with its simplicity. The underlying showmanship, makes itself manifest through the skillful management of the content and the choice of questions. The interviews are well conceived, breezy, and free from bombastic language or unnecessary literary jargons, making it understandable and enjoyable for the common readers. You may also connect to the authors over social networking channels. All interview pages in BookBrowse have links that take to you the specific author’s page or their genuine social networking profiles. For more information, log on to https://www.bookbrowse.com/author_interviews/ .

6 TheWriteScene:

What happens when one author interviews another? What happens when you catch them fighting over a hot literary trend? What do you feel when you see two authors with very dissimilar backgrounds, agreeing on something that is not related to their art? Well, the answer to all three questions, and many more to be come, is one: excellent creative discourse. Candid with Deeba ,a popular segment of TheWriteScene is just what you want. Candid in every sense, Deeba Irfan Salim, herself a successful author and brand expert, indulges in long conversations with authors, revealing unexplored sides of their author personality. The talks range from favorite book and writers, writing journey, to overcoming writer’s block, choosing alternative careers, active participation in social and cultural events, and advice for young and aspiring writers. Candid with Deeba has published interviews of renowned / awarded authors like Padma Shree KekiDaruwala, Chitra Divakaruni, Laurence O’Bryan, Tabish Khair, PreetiShenoy, and more.

Deeba also interviews editor, literary agents, publishers, and brand directors, which shows you the other side of the story; the trader’s point of view. The readers (many of whom are also aspiring or lesser published writers) get to know the reigning themes, changing trends in book publishing and promotion, the art of selling literature, and the effective marketing tools at play. The literary agents tell us in their interviews how they reach out to a global market, or strategize to reach a diverse mass in a shorter time, how to make the best of a literary event. They tell you the success story behind an author, the hard work behind the blockbuster novel, and the trade secrets you always wanted to know.

Take a look at Candid with Deeba , and re-discover your favorite author over a cup of coffee. Who knows, you might find a story, similar to yours? Or you might come across a life-changing advice that adds momentum to your journey as a writer. Log on to http://thewritescene.com/candid-with-deeba/ for more candid talks.

Author interviews are an “inner view” of the lesser known face of the author. It is often said that one author defines the other. Author interviews are perfect examples of this. The story behind the story and the unexplored nooks and corners of life, seen through the eyes of an author make for a delectable reading.

the genre's premiere review magazine for short SF & Fantasy since 1993

Classic Ray Bradbury Interview

Tangent Online Presents:

An Interview with Ray Bradbury

Interviewers:

Robert Jacobs, Dave Truesdale, Bob Wayne

University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh Radio/Television Department (Telephone interview conducted early December 1975)

Interview originally appeared in Tangent #5, Summer 1976, and is reprinted here for the first time.

(Front and Rear cover art by Craig W. Anderson)

Introduction

Long-time Ray Bradbury friend Robert Jacobs worked in the Radio-Television department at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, where I finished my final two years of college following a several year hiatus. I learned that Robert would be conducting another presentation of his traveling “Bob and Ray” show on campus radio soon, so I went to see Bob to ask if Tangent might submit questions for this telephone interview and then use the entire transcript in a forthcoming issue. With me present he proceeded to call Ray in Los Angeles. Ray readily agreed to everything and I even got to talk with him for a whole 45 seconds. Everything was set. Excited, I phoned fellow fanzine editor of Tales from Texas , Bob Wayne, and asked if he would like to submit questions I could ask Ray during the interview. Bob did so. As well, the following interview contains portions of an interview with Ray–also conducted by Robert Jacobs–which appeared in the February 1976 issue of Writer’s Digest , which Robert granted Tangent permission to use.

Therefore, the following interview consists of questions (the bulk of them) from Robert, Tangent , Bob Wayne, and portions of the Writer’s Digest interview. At this point in time I have no idea which questions came from whom, or which segments I took from the Writer’s Digest interview. I also don’t recall Bob Wayne’s Tales from Texas version of the Bradbury interview, and don’t think (but am not sure) he had access to the Writer’s Digest interview included in ours. I don’t remember if I transcribed the whole thing from tape, adding the WD segments, and then mailed them off to Bob, or just made a copy of the radio interview tape and mailed it to him. I just don’t remember.

This Bradbury interview, along with the Leigh Brackett & Edmond Hamilton interview included in this same issue of Tangent , are the two longest interviews I have ever done. Ray’s accomplishments are legion and he impacted the world of imaginative literature on a world-wide scale arguably more than any other author. For a fuller appreciation of his life and work I suggest starting with his wikipedia article .

Ray Bradbury was born August 22, 1920 in Waukegan, Illinois and died June 6, 2012 in Los Angeles, California. Much of Ray’s passion on a multitude of topics is captured in the following interview and I hope you enjoy it. It was a rare privilege to have been a part of it.

TANGENT: Ray, why did you go into science fiction?

RAY BRADBURY: Oh, it’s simply because I grew into it. When you grow up in the 20s the way my generation did, surrounded by Popular Mechanics and Science and Invention and The Boy Mechanic and things of that sort, and then radio coming into existence when I was two years old, and films began to speak when I was seven, and television on the verge of being invented and there was talk of space travel–it’s very exciting. And when you look at all of that…Buck Rogers hit me over the head when I was nine with the comic strips, and it was just kind of natural that I went mad and fell into the field. It’s really part of my entire nervous system. I can’t imagine living any other way.

Hey, I tell you, when you grow up in science fiction you grow up in everything! It’s the greatest and only field worth growing up in. It’s the total field. As a result of reading science fiction when I was eight, I grew up with an interest in music, architecture, city planning, transportation, politics, ethics, aesthetics on any level, art…it’s just total ! It’s a complete commitment to the whole human race on all the Earth. That’s what science fiction is about. The irony is that it’s been made such fun of when it always has been the only relevant fiction that we ever had. It’s 10,000% more relevant when compared to the average American novel today, which is so “in” it’s out. The typical description on the flyleaf of the modern American novel reads, “A New York Jewish intellectual, aged 41, discovers that death means him and can’t decide whether to go back to his wife, his mistress, or his boyfriend.” That’s the plot and you say, “Oh, no, I don’t want to read that again! He’s going to do the Thomas Wolfe bit? He’s gonna discover life? He’s gonna go home again? He’s gonna find the ‘meaning of life’ and agonize and it’s gonna be the ‘Great American Novel’?”

You can’t try for that, you see? You must never name the goal. You must never tell us the target you’re hitting for. You must automatically go toward it without ever naming it. That’s true for all fiction. When you write a story and you want to show a man hating something, you don’t say, “He hated it.” You show him going through all the feelings that surround hatred; slamming doors and knocking books over and hitting children. But you never name the thing he’s doing. So, when you write the “Great American Novel,” hopefully to Jesus you won’t tell me you’re writing it!

TANGENT: There are a lot of critics today who say science fiction is kind of a narrow esoteric genre. Could you comment on that?

TANGENT: The term “speculative fiction” has been coined since so much of the current stuff has little to do with science and technology as such. Do you think the new term is more valid?

BRADBURY: It’s a good word. There are all kinds of terms. Call it what you want, but anything that even guesses ten minutes ahead or supposes new ways of birthing ourselves still fits. It’s fantastic to consider that there isn’t a major problem–in fact, I defy you to name a problem in the world at this very instant–that isn’t science fictional! Women’s Lib couldn’t exist without the effects of a science fictional device called The Pill. If you’d written about that thirty years ago, number one, you’d never have had them published, and number two, no one would believe them.

TANGENT: When you first started writing, one of the strict taboos in science fiction was even so much as a “damn” or a “hell,” much less any talk of the Pill or sex. Now we have science fiction stories dealing very frankly with sex, sexual problems, current social themes, and characters use all sorts of four-letter expletives when the story calls for them. What do you think of this “moral revolution” in literature?

BRADBURY: Well, that’s all come about through the change in the greater society. Most of it happened during the last six to eight years. Even pornography is a very necessary part of our lives. Now it’s come out in the open. Okay, maybe we’ve gone a little overboard here and there, but I think it’s mainly to the good. On the positive side of the ledger you have Man and Woman facing up to their sexual natures. I think it’s tremendously important. We have so much to give on the level of sheer lust and on the level of pure love.

We haven’t begun to talk about it yet. We just started the dialogue. In America we are such a frozen people in so many directions. We’ve been afraid to name our emotions, to name our loves. Men especially are afraid to cry. I’ve set a task for myself to teach men to cry and to laugh better and to create better and to love better. I can only see this as a huge improvement. We have to feel our way for awhile and then suddenly we’ll take a huge leap forward. We’ll dare to name our emotions to one another. Your friend will say, “Hey, has that happened to you?” And you’ll say, “Yeah, that’s happened to me.” “Well, do you ever cry in the shower?” “Yeah, it’s a great place to cry!” Well, once that’s out, you can get more men to crying and I think it’s only going to improve our culture.

TANGENT: That’s one thing Women’s Lib has going for it, don’t you think?

BRADBURY: Yeah. I argue with Women’s Lib about a lot of things, but this is one area in which I totally agree. They’d like to teach men to cry because in our culture we’re not supposed to. It’s not “manly.” Well, that’s a lot of crap! We’re identical to women, absolutely identical, in our need to release tensions. That’s why I write as I do. I’ve often been accused of being too emotional and sentimental, but I believe in honest sentiment, and the need to purge ourselves at certain times, which is ancient . Men would live at least five or six more years and not have ulcers if they could cry better. A woman can say to another woman, “I love you,” but it takes a long time for a man in a friendship to look at another man and say, “Hey, I love you.” Maybe never. Science fiction is deeply involved in these problems, too.

TANGENT: You have been classified as a science fiction writer, as you well know, and in fact some people have said you single-handedly elevated science fiction to a fine science and sort of got it legitimized. How do you feel about that?

BRADBURY: Well, there are a lot of other people in the field with me who have legitimized it. People like Arthur Clarke and Robert Heinlein around the world are very well known. I imagine if I had anything a trifle different to bring to it, it was my love and knowledge of theatre and poetry and the various other arts, which I imagine helps me do a kind of fiction that was a little bit unusual, a little bit different. And I imagine that has contributed a lot.

There’s plenty of room for competition here and it’s a very interesting family of writers. Heinlein was one of my teachers, Jack Williamson, Henry Kuttner, Ross Rocklynne, Leigh Brackett; the list is long and they’re all wonderful people, and all different. Now the great thing about our field is how different all of us can be. I’ve managed to get a little more attention than some but, on the other hand, at this very moment in time, Heinlein is doing very well in all the colleges of this country and many other countries.

TANGENT: What did you think of Francois Truffaut’s film of your book Fahrenheit 451 ?

BRADBURY: It was a very good film, of course. The spirit of it is very close to my novel, and I’m very proud of Truffaut. I’m very happy with the film. The film has flaws, every film does, and I was very honest in talking with Truffaut at the time it came out–telling him where I thought there were some soft spots, or toward the end why I thought the chase didn’t work; it’s not exciting enough. You can’t get out of a major city as easily as Montag got out of that major city. It was all much too easy. And I imagine the reason that is true is they ran out of money making the film. And that can sometimes cut away all the things you intended to do, and you’ve spent all your money, and it comes on toward shooting the film in sequence; in this case it came on toward finishing it, and they simply didn’t have the money, which means buying time for themselves to do that properly. But the very end of the film is superb; the bookmen walking through the snow, remembering the books that they loved, acting out the books that they loved, being the books, with the snow falling all around them. That is one of the most beautiful scenes ever photographed.

BRADBURY : That’s right. They stayed, and as a result they have an ending there that puts it among, I would say, the ten top endings of any films of all time. You can name your favorite endings for pictures when you look back, can’t you? Sunset Boulevard for instance, the scene where Gloria Swanson comes down the stairs for her close-up and walks into the camera with Spanish music playing, and then the camera dissolves away and the film is done. Well, that’s one of the great endings. And then “Rosebud” at the end of Citizen Kane was one of the greatest endings ever. So, I put Truffaut’s ending right in that same category. It’s one of those things that carp as you may at the rest of the film, you look at that and say, Ahh, here’s a first class director who knows exactly what to do.

TANGENT: You had a somewhat altered experience when Rod Steiger played in the film of The Illustrated Man . What do you think about that?

TANGENT: You have a great love and interest in films which not too many people are aware of. For instance, I don’t know that many people are aware that you wrote the screenplay for John Huston’s Moby Dick . How did you get into that?

BRADBURY : Well, I’d loved John Huston’s films for years. Back when I was 21 he made The Maltese Falcon . I think I saw it six times that first year, and fifteen or twenty times since. And then when Treasure of the Sierra Madres came out I rushed out to see that two or three times in the first week or so. So, my love for Huston goes back a long way, and when I’d published enough books of short stories I called my agent and said, “Now, I’ve got to meet John Huston,” because of all the people in the world I wanted to work for, it’s John Huston.

I met Huston and gave him my books and he went off to Africa to shoot The African Queen and I didn’t see him for two years. We corresponded very briefly and he said that he liked my books very much; someday we’d work together. He came back in August of 1953, called me to the hotel and put a drink in my hand and said how would you like to come live in Ireland and write Moby Dick . And that’s how I got the job.

(Laughing) John loved doing imitations of me when I heard the news. To his friends he would say, “And uh, Ray was sitting there, and uh, his jaw dropped and his breath went out of his body, and he fell over.” (Laughing heartily)

TANGENT: (Laughing) That’s a pretty good imitation of John Huston.

TANGENT: Huston’s quite a practical joker, isn’t he?

BRADBURY: Oh, very much so. In fact, when I was in the middle of writing the screenplay, I was around page 60 or so, a cablegram arrived which Huston handed to me and was from Jack Warner, head of Warner Bros. studios, and it said, “Absolutely refuse to proceed with filming of Moby Dick unless Bradbury writes large woman’s role into the film.” Well, I threw the cable on the floor and jumped around on it and swore–oh, terrible swearing–and in the middle of my frenzy I looked up and John was rolling on the floor, and of course he had sent the cable himself. So, that kind of joke I like very much. (Laughing) When I got over my rage it was beautiful.

TANGENT: As a result of living in Ireland during that time you wrote a series of plays based on The Anthem Sprinters . Would you like to tell a couple of Irish stories?

BRADBURY: Well, it was interesting when I was living in Dublin because I don’t drive. I had to hire a car every late afternoon and drive out through the fog and the mist and the rain with the sun going down at three o’clock in the afternoon–and people forget how far north Ireland is, how dreadful the winter’s are–and I’d do a scene from Moby Dick , finish the eight or nine pages, and hire a car and go out and visit Huston and generally have dinner there and come back home around midnight.

I would be driven by a fellow named Nick, from the local pub. I would call down to Heberson’s pub, Nick would come driving up to Terpcock there where Huston was living and we would drive back at a nice, easy, slow philosophical 32 miles per hour, along by the fields and past the farms and where all the priests of America are trained, and this went on for about 120 nights, and I got to know Nick very well, and I loved him because he drove nice and slow for old cowardly Ray.

So, it got on toward the first night of Lent and I said to Nick, “Nick, what are you giving up for Lent?” “Aw, yew know, it’s these things I’ve got in me mouth, they’re dire congestors of the lungs, it’s like gold fillin’s. I’m going to give up cigarettes for Lent, and God knows long after.” I said great, since I don’t smoke myself.

So the next night was the first night of Lent. I went out from Dublin, spent the night with Huston, and at the end of the evening we called down to Heberson’s pub, the old Irish driver showed up in his old 1928 Nash, and I got in and bang! We were off at 80, 85, 90, 95, a hundred miles an hour down the roads, racing, knocking roosters off the road, knocking priests and nuns sideways, racing through like a locomotive, and I looked over at my driver and said, “Nick, Nick, what’s that on your lower lip?” There was this cigarette on his lower face with this incredible fire and smoke filling the place, and he said, “Ah, God, I gave up the ither.” And I said, “The ither?” And he said, “The ither.” And I realized then for the first time in 120 nights that I was driving with a sober man. This monster! I thought I was driving with a human being and all of a sudden this monster takes over.

So, the next night when I came out of Huston’s I brought a bottle of the best with me and I handed it in through the window to Nick and said, “Now before we go anywhere, I don’t like that other person you’ve become, drink this.” And he said, “Oh, fer God sake, don’t tempt me.” And I said, “You’ll have to give up something else.” And he said, “In all of Ireland there’s nothing else to give up. Wait a minute…I’ll give up women.” I said, “Have you ever had any?” And he said, “No. But I’ll give’em up anyway.” (Ray, chuckling profusely) And he drank this stuff down, and his face mellowed and his hands softened on the wheel. I looked at him then, and said, “Oh, Nick, Nick, you’re back!” And he says kinda shyly, “I was long away.” So we drove into Dublin at a nice, steady 32 miles per hour.

That’s a true story, and it happened to me, and I wrote it. It’s part of my Anthem Sprinters collection.

TANGENT: You’ve written about all kinds of marvelous machineries, including one which took Ernest Hemingway from the place where he shouldn’t have died and put him back where he should have. You’ve written about rocketships and airplanes. Is it true that you do not drive and do not fly in aircraft?

BRADBURY: No, I’ve never learned to drive and I’ve never been up in an airplane. The nearest I’ve been to that is going up in the Goodyear blimp and chasing whales along the California coast. Which was just great, that was just beautiful. I love blimps and balloons because when you cut the motor on a plane you’re in big trouble (chuckling). So, I would love…wouldn’t it be great…to go cross-country in the Goodyear blimp and write a record of your landings in farm fields, and meadows, and just going across the country at that nice leisurely pace. I think that would just be jolly.

TANGENT: But when you go from here to England you just take the train and then the boat, right?

BRADBURY: Yeah, right.

TANGENT: What is it about cars?

BRADBURY: Oh, I don’t know. I think I’d be a lousy driver, a murderous driver the way most drivers are, and a danger to themselves and others and most people don’t have enough courage to know this about themselves. And then I imagine…because I saw so many people hurt and killed on my way back and forth across the country when I was 12 and 14 years old, with my parents. When you see enough of that kind of murder I think it fills you up and you don’t get over it–at least I never got over it. So, I decided not to be part of that.

TANGENT: We were talking about films earlier. Fahrenheit 451 ran on a double bill up here with 2001: A Space Odyssey , or Oddity , as you will, and as you know Space Odyssey has sort of caught on and become a cult film, like 451 seems to be doing now. What do you feel about 2001 ?

BRADBURY: It’s the single most beautiful film ever made. You look at it technically and photographically… I saw it again the other night at Filmex Screenings where we put on a fifty hour marathon of science fiction films, and I hadn’t seen it in a couple of years, and of course every time I see it I’m just astounded at the technical facility of this film and the entire look of it. The camera work is absolutely incredible. But when you’ve said that, you’ve almost said the whole thing. You know, it’s in very bad taste for one writer to speak of another writer, but in this case I’m not really talking about Arthur Clarke, I’m talking about Kubrick who directed the film and who also, I think, ruined the script. Every time I look at the film I get furious at their inability to handle all this beautiful equipment better. You know, they turned the astronauts into such bores. Well, astronauts are not bores. I’ve spent enough time with them to know they’re not boring people. I spent an afternoon with Buzz Aldrin about ten days ago, the first time I really had a chance to sit down with him and talk, and we were talking philosophy and politics and children’s books and you name it. But he’s not like any of these people we saw in 2001 , nor are any of the other astronauts I’ve met. People like John Glenn, Mr. Grissom, Mr. White, and Mr. Chaffe. I met those last three men about ten days before they were killed in that fire.

So, when I see this film I say wait a minute, this is ridiculous that they didn’t do more with the characters or the people. They missed a real chance there.

TANGENT: They missed the whole humanity of the thing.

TANGENT: What inspired you to write Fahrenheit 451 ?

TANGENT: You seem to be terribly involved about important issues all the time in your writing. For instance, right now you’re very concerned about cities, and what’s happening to them, and many of these considerations are beginning to take place in your stories. Tell us about cities, Ray.

BRADBURY: When you look around at some of the new developments, the architecture of so many of our cities is so dreadful, and they sort of plan people out of existence. There’s no place to sit down, there’s no place to eat outdoors, all the things that make living–especially in California–so beautiful, are being ignored here in L. A. and in other towns. So what I’m trying to do is encourage the City Fathers to use more imaginative thinking in their architecture, in their city-planning, in their rapid transit; excite them to the potential of these things, and a number of cities have begun to call on me to come in and criticize their plans. Well, I’m not really a planner, I’m not an architect, but I do have a sense of what looks good I think, what is agreeable, what is social. And so I’ve been out to Pasadena, to Pomona and Orange in the last year just to visit the mayors and the City Fathers, planners, and congratulate them when a thing looks good, and demure when a thing isn’t quite right.

This happened down at Century City here a couple of years ago. They called and said how would you like to help us do a tape-recording of your feelings on Century City. I said I’ll certainly do it if you publish everything I say. And they agreed, and of course I just took the place apart, and again because they didn’t make enough plans, in a spacious city like this, for places to sit and enjoy people . You could have lots and lots of restaurants outdoors, protected from the wind–there’s lots of ways of doing that. And I’ve been over there several times in the last week and I don’t see any signs of their planning for people much. The city falls into two sections, and there’s no way to get from one section to the other without crossing a huge boulevard. And this most people won’t do, so the two cities are truncated and there’s not going to be any cross-pollination between the two sides. Which is most unfortunate.

TANGENT: We have a lot of interest now–as you’re perfectly aware–I’ve read articles of yours commenting on it, about preservation of our environment. We’re suddenly aware of it. Do you feel optimistic about it?

BRADBURY: Oh, yes. Millions and millions of people are involved in various movements now like Ralph Nader and Common Cause which are beautiful groups. Jacques Cousteau has started a new group which I hope to join in the next week or so, to protect the sea environment. Many of the big corporations are discovering it’s good business, it’s good public relations, and it’s good humanity to participate in all this. Standard Oil I think, reinstituted funds for a game preserve up around San Francisco about a year ago, as a result of pressure being put on them. Well, that’s great, and as soon as they do something like this we have to congratulate them. We have to remember that corporate heads have to go home each night and sit with their children at dinner, hmm? And so we should learn to praise more often as well as criticize when someone does something right. So I’m trying to teach people of all ages to, number one: how to criticize, how to offer creative analysis on top of that, how to try to build things in a new direction and how to compliment people when the thing gets done.

I helped to put together a propaganda campaign for a library down in Huntington Beach three or four years ago and I wanted to speak to the City Fathers and the whole community and say for goodness sakes, if you’re willing to build a library, why not make it more than that, why not make it a real social center because we all love libraries to begin with, and use them as social centers as we grow up. Many of us do. And give us more than one reason to go to a library, why not? Good classic films maybe run there every Monday night, lectures one or two nights a week in a special room, art exhibits in another room, or a combination of those. So by gosh, the library is finally built down in Huntington Beach, and opened, and I haven’t had a chance to get down and see it but I’ve seen photographs and it looks terrific. And it’s this sort of thing I’m interested in doing; encouraging people as well as criticizing them. And once in awhile when you see something happen it does make you optimistic, and more and more things are happening in these fields.

TANGENT: Many times these days people say nobody’s reading anymore, nobody’s publishing anymore, a new writer can’t get started. How do you feel about that?

BRADBURY: No. It’s just not true. That’s one of those intellectual clichés. If you go to the local bookstore you’ll find that that’s not true at all. New authors are being published every single day of the year, and if you’re talented people will discover you. We all have to start somewhere, and remember there was a time, 28 years ago, when I wasn’t being published in any thing, and gradually I began to move into more and more magazines. I was my own agent. I didn’t have an agent to help me with a lot of my early sales, especially in the quality magazines. So I just sent the things out myself and I sold a story to Collier’s on my own. I sold one to Mademoiselle and I sold one to Charm , completely on my own with no name, no reputation, no agent, living in Venice, California making $40 a week at writing when I was lucky. The last several years have been some of the best years for book sales that I can remember. The sale of books is still very high. There are several thousand new fiction titles every year and the last figures I saw seem to indicate to me that the bookstores are still doing very well.

And it’s not true that people are not reading. The libraries are doing very well, people are going to the libraries, people are borrowing books. It would be interesting to do a little real research for those people who say people are not reading anymore. Just go and do some real research and see how much your local library was being used last year as opposed to say five or ten years ago. I think you might be surprised at the results.

TANGENT: You said something once about helping people get through the night. And many of your stories, as in Dark Carnival , deal heavily with death, terror, and horror. Why do you deal with such terrible, scary stories?

No I intend to frighten my friends with that on occasion; to get them to write a song, a play, do a poem, write a short story, paint a picture, no matter what it is, to scare the hell out of them and get them to realize that tomorrow is coming on very fast and soon enough most of us will be dead, period.

So get your work done. And I also do this in stories, but not as a social reformer. Just to show them that I have passions, and these things scare me, too. So I figure…I hate book burners, I hate’em with all my heart. I hated Hitler and what he did to his country. I hated Stalin and his book burners. I hate what goes on in China with all the book burning. And if I care enough then I write a novel called Fahrenheit 451 , and I say to Montag, “Montag, run ahead of me, write this novel for me, teach me how not to burn books.” Nine days later Montag finishes writing the book for me; he is my passionate character in search of himself. That’s the way you write a book. But not as a way to tell the world how to behave. If you’re a passionate person afraid, then you can start to instruct the world.

TANGENT: When you’re writing, do you see things happening?

BRADBURY: Absolutely. You have to live in a cloud of emotions. You rev yourself up. Give yourself time in the middle of the afternoon, or when you’re waking up early in the morning, when you’re in that kind of wonderful, euphoric state in-between, on the verge of dreams when you get a kind of nuclear bombardment of all kinds of fragments of ideas jumping around inside your head and hitting each other. They begin to fuse and detonate each other. It’s a very hard thing to describe. You don’t have any control over your mind at a time like that, and you don’t want it, see? Let it run wild! Then watch it remotely at the bottom of your skull. Look up at all those things running around wild, then jump up and run over to the typewriter and feed them in!

TANGENT: And don’t think about them, eh?

BRADBURY: No! You cannot write by thinking. You have plenty of time to think in between times. The period in between is when you stuff your eyeballs, when you read diversified multitudes of material in every field. I absolutely demand of you and everyone I know that they be widely read in every damn field there is: in every religion and every art form and don’t tell me you haven’t got time! There’s plenty of time. You need all of these cross-references. You never know when your head is going to use this fuel, this food for its purposes. Stuff yourself with serious subjects, with comic strips and motion pictures and radio and music; with symphonies, with rock, with everything! What we often forget is that thought is to be used to correct life. It’s not a way of life! If you make thought the center of your life, you’re not going to live it. So, what you have to do is be this kind of hysterical, emotional, vibrant creature who lives at the top of his lings for a lifetime and then corrects around the edges so that he doesn’t go insane or drive his friends mad. Thought is the skin around the organ. The organ is full of blood and a beating heart, a soul and the exhaltation of being alive!

TANGENT: Ray, you have a fascinating story called “The Small Assassin.” It’s about a six-month old baby who murders his mother and father. Tell us about this.

BRADBURY: Well, this was the result of my own background. I can remember the moment of my own birth, and just about everything since.

TANGENT: You can remember being born?

BRADBURY: Yes, right. I first began thinking about this quite a bit when my first child was born about 26 years ago. We came home from the hospital, had been home a couple of nights, and my daughter Susan had nightmares in her crib. We checked to see if she was dry or hungry or a pin was sticking her, and that was not the case; she was having a nightmare. Well, how can a child who is only three or four days old have a nightmare? Well, the only thing it could be about was being born; that’s the only memory they have, it’s the only big event and it’s a super event in your life, isn’t it? The big thing of being born. And the next big ones after that are sex, passion, lust, love…and the next big trauma is growing old, then sickness, and then death. We all have four or five traumas to go through.

Looking at my childhood from the crib I remembered having a nightmare in my crib when I was four or five days old, and they continued for about the first year and I’d wake up having a nightmare of being born. I asked my mother when she stopped nursing me and she said when I was three days old. Well, I remember the flavor, the camera angle, everything. I asked her how old I was when I was circumcised, and she told me three days old. And I told her, it wasn’t in a hospital, was it? And she said no, why do you say that? And I told her because I have a memory of a place much like and office and somebody bending over me with a scalpel, and the pain. She said, my god, it was the third day you were born, and it was in the doctor’s office that I had been taken to be circumcised. So, it’s interesting to have all these memories of suckling, being circumcised, being in the crib.

TANGENT: How do you tie all this in, Ray, with loving and being kind, when you have a six-month old baby as in “The Small Assassin” who kills his mother and father?

Well, “The Small Assassin” is a way of understanding the destructive principle in any child. Any child, at some time or another, has had thoughts of murdering their mother and father…like my story “The Veldt.” Every child who reads this, where lions come out of the walls of the room, in order to devour the parents, all the kids go “Whoopee! Hurray! I know that.” Now, if you’re not careful you can make them feel guilty for thinking that. You mustn’t make them think that because we’ve all wanted to kill–in that moment of love–the person that we love. It’s part of the human mechanism. Why the mechanism works the way it does is a mystery to us; we can’t expect anything to perfect.

If you have a friend that you love very much you feel they know too much about you, you’ve exposed yourself to that love, you’ve stuck your neck out, you’ve revealed yourself completely. They know everything about you, and if they wanted to, they could tell the world all your weaknesses. That’s the part where the murderous impulses come from. And that doesn’t mean that you go out and do it, but we must be comfortable with this impulse so we won’t go out and murder.

BRADBURY: As long as it isn’t repetitive and too sick. There is a kind of violence at times that is so inordinate that it is sick . I mean the Manson family, for instance; that is so incredibly sick, just incredibly so. Well, there are certain things you can’t go into because they’re so beyond the pale. Murdering children, or murdering a pregnant woman and then tearing the body is so beyond our thinking as to be unimaginable, you can’t imagine it. Well, that’s what they did. Horrible, these people are. So, we can’t even talk about it.

But, ordinary violence, which comes in the way of comparing good and evil, helps to exorcize those spirits within ourselves which need to be exorcized. In other words, the will towards violence is there, and if we don’t get rid of it in one way or the other…either directly by hitting someone, which we don’t want to do…or we try to build ourselves a society here set up with laws made up to try and control ourselves, because we know we have a will toward violence. Now, we have to live within those laws if we want to build cities and raise our children and grow old in peace. But in truth, where does the violence go? So, all of this being true, our arts must help us to free the violence that is in our soul. Now, I don’t know what all of the rules of the game are, but if our movies and our televisions don’t have a certain amount of this we will become a society bound completely by laws, so the anarchy that rages within us on occasion will burst out and be ten times worse. So, if we need these steam valves to let some of this out of us occasionally–and we have to look at this very carefully–to find the right proportion for our children, and for ourselves. Somehow we’ve got to find the right proportion if we want to build a society that allows itself to vent its rages, so that we don’t have to go outside the law for it.

You tell me what the proportion is, I’m not quite sure.

TANGENT: One thing that strings through all of your writing–all of your writing is very personal and very individual–your fiction is filled with memorable individuals. What would you care to say about individualism as opposed to the professional joiner, the group person, and so on?

BRADBURY: We have to encourage combinations of things. We can’t live alone in any society. But the best way to help a society or group, is to be the best individual in it that we can be. I’m willing to help people, I’m willing to help groups…but the best way that they can enable me to help is by letting me be myself. I can only speak for myself, and at the top of my creativity I can move into any group and prove it simply by being myself, by giving input that counts. By being critical at the right moment, by being constructive, by being honest. Not pulling things down to pull them down, but at the moment of criticism to offer construction. I think it’s got to be a combination. In any society there has to be a combination of individuals working at the top of their passion, their love and dedication, and their talent. Plus a group who comes up under them or with them and implements that thing. There are many areas where we can work alone, other areas where we need other people to cooperate with us. And a good society should offer the alternatives, shouldn’t it? And that’s what’s great about America today. There’s a combination of this. Very few countries in the world offer this kind of opportunity, not only for working in groups, but working as individuals. This is maybe the only country where it functions first class.

TANGENT: In your introduction to the second volume of the collections of the EC stories, Tomorrow Midnight it was called, you stated that you’d like to be able to write your own Sunday comics page. Ten years after writing that introduction, would you still like to do something along those lines?

BRADBURY: Oh, yes! I’ve grown up with a huge love of comic strips and comic pages and the Sunday papers. In fact I used to get–we were a very poor family and we couldn’t afford to buy all the Sunday papers that we wanted to buy, including The Milwaukee Journal . The Milwaukee Journal used to have full-page spreads of Tarzan ; on every Sunday it was just gorgeous, but we didn’t have a chance to get all of them because they were too expensive. So, my early influences are Tarzan in the Sunday papers, and Buck Rogers in a Boston newspaper, and collecting all different comic strips starting when I was nine. I have all the early Flash Gordon Sunday papers put away.

And out of this love it’s fascinating to see, later in my life, when the Buck Rogers people did the Collected Works of Buck Rogers , they came to me to write the introduction to the book. And the same thing with the latest book on Edgar Rice Burroughs that came out to celebrate the 100th anniversary of his birth. They came to me for an introduction, and isn’t it beautiful that the nine year old boy who fell in love with Buck Rogers and Tarzan , so late in time, is being asked by the relatives and heirs of these influences to come and help out. And…it’s a good way to live, isn’t it?

TANGENT: (Question from listener) What do you think of Star Trek ?

BRADBURY: For the most part it was about tits and not ideas, and if the women’s libbers don’t like it to hell with them. The women had a multitude of tits and no brains.

BRADBURY: If they asked me I would…but I don’t think they’d ask me (chuckling). I think they’re afraid of me. They’ve got some idea that I’m in league with Satan or I’m a Martian or something–a real one! First of all, it’s very hard to write about characters that are not my own. I’d like to but I don’t think it would work out.

TANGENT: Ray, we’ve been talking about things happening recently. What do you think of the recent occurrences in the Northwest where people have been selling all their belongings, their homes, possessions, so that these “people from outer space” can take them to a better world?

BRADBURY: It sounds like areligious flim-flam, doesn’t it? That’s my opinion of the whole damn thing. I think it was one of the famous New York intellectuals in the late 20s who said, “When you think of all the suckers out there in wait for you…” And it makes a con-man just tickle all over, with all those suckers out there just waiting to be taken.

So, these people are all suckers. If I wanted to change my profession tomorrow I could go into ESP; I could ride a chariot of the gods across the country wearing my robes pulled up (laughing). I could start in L. A. with a team of horses and by the time I got to Milwaukee I’d be rich!

TANGENT: You’d also look good in a toga.

BRADBURY: Oh, yes (laughing)…I’ve got great legs!

TANGENT: What memories do you have of producing your own fanzine, Futuria Fantasia ?

TANGENT: Are you aware that a dealer has offered to sell a set of issues 2-4 for $200?

BRADBURY: Oh, my god! No, I never dreamt that sort of thing would ever happen.

TANGENT: What influence did Henry Kuttner have on you as a writer?

BRADBURY: Well, he was a friend and part of that group, too. He was a member of the Science Fantasy Society. He was working for a literary agency at the time and he said, “If you have any short stories I’d be glad to read them.” So, he read a lot of my things, but the best advice he gave me was when Iwas around 21 years old. He came up to me and he said, “Ray, do you wanna do me a favor?” And I said, “What?” He said, “Shuddup!” I said, “What?!” And he said, “Shuddup! You go around telling your ideas to people, you grab them by the lapels, shout in their ear, and you mustn’t give it away! You mustn’t give away your passion. Go put it in a story. Don’t tell your ideas to anyone and go write the stories and I’ll read them.”

And so, since 1941 I’ve never told anybody about anything I’m working on. You keep it inside yourself. If you’re a writer for god’s sake shut up and go write it, and when you finish the thing then go show it to someone and talk about it. But when you talk about it ahead of time it’s like throwing sense out the window; forget it. Do it, don’t talk about it. In thought is nothing, in action is everything.

TANGENT: What part, if any, since you are politically active, did you take in the movement to dump LBJ?

BRADBURY: That’s a very good question because I hated that son-of-a-bitch. He was one of those door-to-door tie salesmen. LBJ was that kind of son-of-a-bitch. He bragged a lot about his bloodline and he turned out to be a bastard. I watched his policies in Vietnam; he sent in 500,000 troops, all behind our back. All lies. He was a far more reprehensible criminal than Nixon wil lever be because Nixon didn’t send 500,000 troops in. But old LBJ did. He was a great liberal that I voted for (chuckling). So I said goddamn, what can I do? Do I believe in the American system? Yes, I do. So, there was this group that came along, the Southern Democrats, and they said, “Hey, will you help us?” And I said, “Sure will.” A copy of the ad, strangely enough, is right here on my desk. It was an ad that was going to be in the L. A. papers on the day LBJ was going to be in town, and it said something to the effect that we are 5,000 Democrats who voted for you and are now completely disassociating ourselves from you because of your conduct in the Vietnam War.

And all my friends said, don’t do this, LBJ won’t step down. And I said, yes he will, I believe in the American system. And sure enough, he did. He didn’t run for re-election.

TANGENT: Would you care to tell us the story and love you felt for Ernest Hemingway? I believe the story you wrote about him was one of the two pieces of fiction LIFE magazine ever published.

BRADBURY: Well, of course, I was dreadfully upset at his death fifteen years ago, his suicide, and of course a lot of people didn’t realize what happened to him, what happened to Hemingway. But back in January or February of 1954 he was in two consecutive airplane accidents, one day following the other. And after the first accident there were a few headlines around the world saying, “Hemingway Killed in Africa.” Well, a few hours later that story was retracted and they discovered he’d walked away from the airplane. And he found another airplane the next day and he got in it and it crashed. Well, the second crash hurt his body terribly, and physically he never got over the trauma of that second accident.

Ideally, what should have happened is that he should have been killed in that second accident, because I feel that’s what most of us would want, or he should have walked away in better shape; we don’t wish torture on anyone, the kind of agony that goes with a bad accident goes on for years and years.

So, when he killed himself that was traumatic to me, it hurt me terribly and I worried about it. So, one night I’d been out with my wife and we were driving home…and something about being in the car and something about talking about something about Hemingway and I suddenly got this idea and I said, “Get me home, because I think I’ve figured out a way to save Papa.” My wife didn’t know what I was talking about. I got home, ran down to the basement and got to the typewriter, and that night and the following morning I wrote this “Kilimanjaro Device” story, which is merely a story of a lot of people touching a safari-trek car with their love, their feeling, their dedication for Hemingway’s stories, and places, and times. And then I go off as the leading advocate of that love to find Hemingway on the highways of Idaho. When he was alive he used to walk along this particular road. So I take the safari-trek car and hope that by some miracle I can go back in time and drive along that road and maybe find Papa. And by gosh, I do, by this miracle of love this safari-trek car goes back along the road and I see this old man walking along with this beard and steel-rimmed glasses and I say, “Papa?” and he turns and comes up and says, “Yes,” and I offer him a ride back in time and at the very end of the story I know that this safari-trek car will turn into an airplane, and at the proper time we will crash and that Hemingway will be killed in Africa, that his body will be put up on the slopes of Kilimanjaro and buried there where he belongs.

I wrote the story and it was rejected by many magazines, and then I got the idea of sending it to LIFE, and they bought it within 48 hours and they published it. The greatest tribute that I’ve ever had was getting in the mail, letters from all over the world saying, “Thanks…for getting Papa off the road.” So, there, I proved my love, didn’t I.

BRADBURY: Well, first of all I was born in Waukegan, Illinois. We used to drive up to Oshkosh on occasion, to Madison, in the summertime, and we used to vacation every summer back when I was 9, 10, 12 years old, at Lake Delavin. So, I know your country up there pretty well. Growing up in northern Illinois is very much like growing up in Oshkosh, or any of those other areas with the carnivals coming through, the autumn weather, with Halloween, and the sense of good and evil in a small town which you don’t even recognize.

When I got older I wanted to do a story about the traveling carnivals and the autumn weather and the love for the country that you and I have shared together. Illinois is not that much different. And it was about passing existence and sadness and joy. And I sort of put it all in one book. Something Wicked This Way Comes just about personifies more than everything else I’ve done, just about everything I think about life. You know, just the joy of being alive and the sense of passing time and losing friends and death coming and scaring you.

And in the novel I have Death coming into the town, and there are people trying to sell them things in return for selling their souls in a pact with Lucifer. It’s a combination of mythological things I suppose I picked up when I was younger out of other books. And with my own feelings about Illinois and Wisconsin as a child.

TANGENT: You’ve finished the screenplay for that, haven’t you?

BRADBURY: Yes, it’s been done for some time now. I’m looking for a director now. I was sort of hoping Sam Peckinpah would direct it but I’m still waiting to hear from him. I love that man. But, I’m not holding my breath, okay? (Laughing)

(Photos above from Archon XX, Oct. 1996. At right: Bradbury and old friends Julius Schwartz, Forrest J Ackerman, Ray Harryhausen)

(Note to diehard Ray Bradbury collectors: I have perhaps 5-8 copies of Tangent #5, Summer 1976 remaining. Along with interviews of Leigh Brackett & Edmond Hamilton, and Jack Williamson, there is a Bradbury article titled “A Feasting of Thoughts, A Banqueting of Words: Ideas on the Theater of the Future” which first appeared in Performing Arts for October 1975 and which Ray allowed us to reprint gratis. Then President of the Science Fiction Writers of America Andrew J. Offutt said of this issue, “ This is the very best issue of any fanzine I have ever seen.” If you would like to acquire one of these last copies–printed by legendary SF editor Raymond Palmer–please send email with your offer to [email protected].)

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Scarce Bradbury Interview

Bradbury: the writer's digest interview.

Notes: An offprint from Writer's Digest and the first separate publication of this interview with Bradbury. Scarce. [28] pages made from seven sheets folded vertically and laid into printed wrappers (not stapled into the binding). The format is unusual, with the text printed in single narrow columns, as it appeared in the magazine. 4-/14 by 11 inches.

Edition + Condition: First edition of this offprint. A near fine copy.

Publication: (N.-pl.): Writer's Digest, 1976.

Item No: #362196

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Media Training for Authors: Produce Your Own Compelling Videos & Handle Any On-Camera Interview with Paula Rizzo

There's no question - video will connect you with book lovers and buyers like no other medium can. In fact, 45% of people watch more than an hour of Facebook or YouTube videos a week - your book may as well get in on the act! Video is a powerful way to find an audience, show off your expertise, and engage clients and fans.

Join Paula Rizzo, an Emmy award-winning television producer and best-selling author of Listful Thinking and Listful Living, and a media trainer, on how to produce compelling video content and prepare to dazzle on-camera!

Here's what you'll learn:

-The secret to creating dynamic and powerful videos that will impress the media and book buyers.

-How to deliver compelling, memorable and provocative interviews.

-Best practices for creating storylines that are newsworthy and interesting.

-The dos and don'ts of video production.

-How to use videos as a marketing and publicity tool to secure media and attract book buyers.

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Bradbury: The Writer's Digest Interview

Bradbury, ray and bob jacobs.

From Downtown Brown Books , Portland, OR, U.S.A.

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About this Item

An offprint from Writer's Digest and the first separate publication of this interview with Bradbury. Scarce. [28] pages made from seven sheets folded vertically and laid into printed wrappers (not stapled into the binding). The format is unusual, with the text printed in single narrow columns, as it appeared in the magazine. 4-/14 by 11 inches. First edition of this offprint. A near fine copy. Seller Inventory # 362196

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Title: Bradbury: The Writer's Digest Interview

Publisher: Writer's Digest, (N.-pl.)

Publication Date: 1976

Binding: Pamphlet

Condition: Near fine

Edition: First Edition.

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South Carolina Baseball's Cole Messina Named Hitter of the Month Following College World Series

Matt peavy | 10 hours ago.

May 23, 2024; Hoover, AL, USA; South Carolina Gamecocks catcher Cole Messina (19) celebrates a two RBI single against the LSU Tigers during the SEC Baseball Tournament at Hoover Metropolitan Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Vasha Hunt-USA TODAY Sports

The National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA) has honored South Carolina’s standout catcher Cole Messina with the prestigious Dick Howser Trophy National Hitter of the Month award for May. This accolade highlights Messina’s exceptional performance during a crucial period of the college baseball season, as he played a pivotal role in his team’s success.

Through 17 games in May, Messina had insane statistics boasting a .450 batting average. He showed off his power at the plate with 10 home runs and 32 RBIs, contributing significantly to the Gamecocks’ offense. Messina also showcased his plate discipline by drawing 17 walks, while also proving to be a threat on the base paths with 5 stolen bases. His impressive hitting was further reflected in his slugging percentage of 1.050 and an on-base percentage of .575, underscoring his all-around offensive prowess.

For the entire season, Messina maintained a solid .326 batting average, hit 21 home runs, drove in 72 runs, and walked 50 times, solidifying his reputation as one of the top hitters in college baseball.

On the pitching side, Oregon State’s Aiden May was recognized as the NCBWA Pitcher of the Month, rounding out the association’s accolades for May with his own standout performances on the mound.

David Marchese

I am a journalist for the new york times where i am a writer and co-host of the interview , a regular series where we interview the world’s most fascinating people., what i cover.

Along with my co-host Lulu Garcia-Navarro, I interview a range of influential people across culture, politics, business, sports and beyond that appears each week as a podcast and a q&a.

My Background

I studied journalism in the Cultural Reporting and Criticism program at New York University. Before joining The Times I was a writer and editor for New York, Rolling Stone, and Spin. I was born and raised in Toronto, Canada, and currently live in suburban New Jersey, a fact about which I am deeply ambivalent.

Journalistic Ethics

I want all of my work to be accurate and fair. As a Times journalist, I share the values and adhere to the standards of integrity outlined in The Times’s Ethical Journalism handbook . Every aspect of my interviews is rigorously fact-checked to make sure that no meanings have been changed and no context has been shifted or altered. I also make sure to speak with all my subjects twice, which gives them a chance to return to ideas or subjects from our first conversation for clarification or other purposes.

You can email me. (Please be nice.) I would really like to hear from you! (Provided you’re nice.)

Email: [email protected]

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ATS Resume Templates

Download an ATS-friendly resume template for free. These templates can be edited in Microsoft Word and can be accurately scanned by an applicant tracking system.

If you’ve made it to this page, then you probably already know more about applicant tracking systems (ATS) than the average job seeker. That gives you an advantage! Why?

Many companies use ATS to manage resumes and applications. In fact, Jobscan research shows that over 97% of Fortune 500 companies use an ATS.

If an ATS can’t read or understand the information on your resume, then your application might not be seen when a recruiter searches for candidates with specific skills or experience – even if you have those skills or the experience!

Your resume needs to be ATS-friendly in order to give you the best chance of getting a job interview. That means that you need an ATS resume template.

We’ve designed 15 ATS resume templates that can be downloaded as Microsoft Word files and easily edited. Download one for free or use our free resume builder to get a customized ATS-friendly resume in minutes.

Free ATS Resume Templates

Executive and Management ATS-Friendly Resume Templates

As a leader, you want your experience and accomplishments to shine. These resume templates give you opportunities to show the measurable results you’ve achieved, as well as your hard and soft skills .

Using correct formatting is critical here. The ATS needs to be able to parse all of that vital information and categorize it correctly. You also need your resume to be searchable by an ATS so that when a recruiter filters candidates by skills, your application stays on the list.

Entry-Level ATS-Friendly Resume Templates

You might not think you have a lot to show on your resume, but you do! These templates provide sections where you can highlight your education, internships, volunteer experience , personal accomplishments, and more.

An ATS-friendly resume will help you get found by recruiters and hiring managers. This is important because an entry-level position could have hundreds of applicants! Use these templates to make sure the ATS picks up your skills and experience.

Make your resume faster with our free resume builder

Write your resume the free and easy way with the only resume builder designed specifically with ATS-compliant resume templates.

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ATS Resume Templates - What You Need to Know

How to make the perfect ats resume.

Remember, an ATS is just a computer filing system. It needs to be able to scan and understand the text on your resume in order to correctly parse the information and sort it properly.

An ATS will never auto-reject a resume, but an ATS optimized resume does make it easier for a recruiter to find you among the sea of applicants.

Even more importantly, an ATS-friendly resume naturally follows expert-recommended resume writing standards as well. That means that when the recruiter personally views your resume, it will include the relevant information they’re looking for and will be formatted in a way that makes it easier to read

Follow these tips for making the perfect ATS resume :

1. Tailor your resume to the job you are applying for

Focus on quality over quantity. Each job you apply for is unique, even if they all have the same title. Every company has different needs for that role. The job description will make it clear which hard skills, soft skills, experience, and education the company is looking for. So tailor your resume to show them that you are the perfect candidate.

Tailoring each and every resume can be time consuming, but it’s worth the effort!

You can speed up this process by using a tool like Jobscan’s resume scanner . Powered by AI-technology , this tool analyzes your resume against the job description and provides you with a resume score that tells you how closely your resume matches the job description. It also tells you exactly what you need to do to increase your score.

2. Match your resume keywords to skills found in the job description

Recruiters might use an ATS’ search function to find applicants with specific skills. How do you know what skills they will search for? By examining the job listing. Use a resume scanner to automatically pick out the hard and soft skills the recruiter might search for, and then include those on your resume.

Even if the recruiter doesn’t search applications for those skills, they’ll definitely be looking for mentions of them on each resume they review.

3. Use long-form and acronym versions of keywords

Some ATS will only return resumes with the exact keywords the recruiters would search for. For example, if you included “Search Engine Optimization” in your resume but the recruiter searched for “SEO,” your profile may not appear in the results. Try to include both the acronym and the unabbreviated form of the term.

Use a tool like Jobscan’s resume fixer to make sure your resume doesn’t contain mistakes that will eliminate you from consideration.

4. Use Chronological or Hybrid resume format to write your resume .

Recruiters do not like the functional resume format . Unless you’re making a career change, a functional resume is going to work against you. (And even then, we recommend you steer clear of the format for a career change resume .)

The best format for the ATS is traditional reverse chronological. You can also use chronological and hybrid resume formats as these are familiar to most recruiters.

5. Use an easy-to-read, traditional font

For readability, use a traditional serif or sans serif font. Untraditional or “fancy” fonts can cause parsing errors, which means the full text of your resume won’t be searchable.

6. Use standard resume section headings

Section headers like “Where I’ve Been” in place of “Work Experience” will confuse applicant tracking systems, causing them to organize information incorrectly.

7. Save your file as a .docx if possible

A docx file is most compatible with ATS.

What is the best resume format for ATS?

There are three standard resume formats to choose from in your job search. They shape your first impression and determine the way recruiters and hiring managers view your fit as an applicant.

Your resume formatting can also determine how well your resume is parsed within an applicant tracking system (ATS) and how likely you are to be noticed as a result.

Regardless of the format you use, the most important thing is to use standard section headings like Experience, Skills, and Education. That will make it easier for the ATS to categorize the text.

How to tailor your ATS-friendly resume to a job

Tailoring your resume proves to recruiters that you’re an experienced professional. Most importantly, it shows them that you’re the perfect fit for this role.

Follow these three steps for tailoring your resume to a job description:

1. Examine the specific job description of the position

Go line by line through the job description and ask yourself these questions:

“Does my resume experience section clearly state that I can do what’s required of this role?”
“Am I using the same language found in the job description or job posting?”

You might find several different or missing skills and keywords in your generic resume.

2. Match skills and keywords from the job description

Mirroring the language, keywords, and buzzwords found within the job description is the easiest way to demonstrate you’re a better match than the competition.

The best way to show you’re the best fit for the position is to take words from the job posting and strategically put them in your job descriptions and other resume sections. A resume scanner will automatically pull out these keywords in seconds and speed up this process.

3. Write your job title clearly

Recruiters might search for people who have done the job they’re hiring, so list your job titles clearly and match the titles to the one in the job posting when possible. If you haven’t held the job before, list it under your name at the top or as part of your summary section.

What is Applicant Tracking Software (ATS)?

An applicant tracking system (ATS) is software used to assist with human resources, recruitment, and hiring. While each system offers a different package of features, applicant tracking systems are primarily used to help hiring companies organize and navigate large numbers of applicants.

For example, an ATS stores job candidate information like resumes, cover letters, references, and other recruitment and hiring data that HR teams can easily access and organize. It will also track job candidates and their application status throughout the hiring pipeline.

Ultimately, an ATS automates time-consuming administrative tasks such as manually screening applicants, reading resumes, scheduling interviews, and sending notifications and emails to job candidates and employees.

Can you add graphics to your resume?

When it comes to creating an ATS-friendly resume , the rule is: The simpler, the better. ATS are improving at scanning different formatting features, but not all of them are good at this.

Adding graphics and images could cause ATS parsing errors , which means the text on your resume won’t be fully searchable or accurately categorized by an ATS. We recommend that job seekers err on the side of caution. Avoid graphics, images, and photos.

Are Google Docs or Microsoft resume templates ATS-friendly?

They can be. We talked about some formatting features to avoid on your resume – fancy graphics and non-traditional fonts. Those features can trip up an ATS, even if they’re on a Word document or Google Docs file.

However, as long as you follow the guidelines on this page, or use one of these ATS resume templates, you’ll be fine.

How to get your cover letter past the ATS?

To increase your cover letter’s chances of passing an ATS, focus on using a clean format without complex formatting, incorporate relevant keywords and phrases from the job description, and ensure that your content is easy for the ATS to parse.

Consider using a tool like Jobscan’s cover letter generator to help you create an ATS-friendly cover letter. If you already have a cover letter, run it through our cover letter checker tool to get personalized feedback on how to improve your cover letter and make it more compelling to employers.

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Category: Xbox Games Showcase

Reinventing A Mad World: Why Gears of War: E-Day Represents the Future of the Series

Check out the brutal new trailer for Gears of War: E-Day , unveiled today during the Xbox Games Showcase 
Gears of War: E-Day is an origin story that depicts the horror of Locust invasion on Emergence Day through the eyes of Marcus Fenix
Developers at The Coalition share further details on how this long-awaited origin story is being built from the ground up in Unreal Engine 5

Gears of War: E-Day was unveiled in a surprise announcement during the Xbox Games Showcase today, alongside an explosive trailer that takes us all the way back to Emergence Day. The trailer introduces us to this defining moment in the Gears of War series that sees the fearsome Locust make themselves known with a brutal ambush from below against the world of Sera. Here, we’ll follow younger versions of the series’ original heroes, Marcus Fenix and Dom Santiago, as they begin their fight against the Locust invasion. This event is the catalyst for everything we know and love about Gears of War, and I caught up with developers at The Coalition to find out why now is the perfect time to tell that story. 

Speaking to Creative Director Matt Searcy and Brand Director Nicole Fawcette, I find that the vibe inside The Coalition is ecstatic – the team is absolutely thrilled to finally be sharing E-Day with the world. Over the last few years, the studio has remained purposefully quiet but continuously busy, wrapping up Gears 5 , shipping its Hivebusters DLC and Gears Tactics , all the while adapting to the Covid pandemic and its changes to how studios are run. During that time, the shift in rhythm allowed the team some time to reflect, figuring out what they, and fans, were truly passionate about in order to find the next great Gears story. 

“We realized that a lot of the words we use to describe the franchise were what our fans also use, phrases like brotherhood, brutality, pathos, awe,” says Searcy. “Why E-Day?  That’s the moment it all comes together. It’s the heart of the Gears universe. Everything that happens is shaped by this day.” 

Fans of those mainline Gears of War games can expect to feel at home with how Gears of War: E-Day feels. The Coalition is working to recreate and improve the series’ trademark third-person action, charging between cover in life-or death situations, all set within an explosive campaign that combines satisfying gameplay and emotive, character-led storytelling. However, all this is told through a modern lens, and rooted in groundbreaking technology, giving The Coalition room to really build out those elements. It’s a careful balance – a classic Gears of War game that feels authentic next to the original, but with truly next-gen tech behind it.

“It’s going to feel like a new Gears game, because that’s what it is,” Searcy says. “It’s us revisiting the tone and the feeling of what makes Gears great, but we’re tapping into new techniques, new processes, and new technology that’s going to make the gameplay feel better than ever. It’s going to be awesome, a game that feels both truly new, and authentically Gears.” 

Bringing the Monsters Back

Gears of War: E-Day is set 14 years before the events of the original Gears of War and tells the story of the first Locust emergence on Sera. As the game unfolds, we’ll get to see how an ill-prepared world responds to a threat like the Locust. The Coalition are being very intentional to recast the Locust not simply as foes but as living nightmares. These aren’t your typical alien or zombie videogame antagonists; they’re mysterious, formidable creatures that dwell beneath the earth, tapping into our deepest fears. “The design brief was pretty simple,” explains Searcy. “Locust are the ‘monsters under the bed.’ What would happen to the people of Sera in seeing this overwhelming army of monsters and trying to figure out…what are you going to do?”

Studio Art Director Aryan Hanbeck explains further, “When players experience E-Day , they see the monsters through the eyes of those encountering them for the first time.” The design team prioritized redefining the Locust Drone, which had slowly become mere cannon fodder as the series progressed. “We transformed the drone into something fearsome, physically intimidating, and utterly brutal,” Hanbeck notes, highlighting its enhanced status just behind Marcus and Dom in the announce trailer. “Getting the drone right was crucial; everything else with the Locust we’re scaling up from there.”

A Tale of Origins

  The E-Day reveal trailer wastes no time in reintroducing us to Marcus, as he engages in a brutal struggle with the aforementioned Locust Drone. However, unlike our previous outings with him, this is the first time that the seasoned horde-sawing soldier we all know has faced off against an enemy like this. You can feel the strain and helplessness as he jousts with this inexplicable monstrosity – before finally fending it off not with his Retro Lancer, but a nearby television set. It’s this flavour of raw, personal brutality and desperation that The Coalition seeks to capture in Gears of War: E-Day – Marcus, and the world around him, are not yet equipped for this level of threat. 

The eagle-eyed fans among you may have also noticed that the MK 1 Lancer that Marcus briefly wields in the trailer features a detachable bayonet – it’s not the chainsaw-equipped gun we know from the wider series.   

Fawcette confirms to me that E-Day is a “story of many origins,” including the Chainsaw Lancer, but opts to keep the specifics of those stories to herself for now. Suffice it to say, we’re not just learning how Marcus and Dom came to be the heroes we know in E-Day.  

“[The Chainsaw Lancer] doesn’t currently exist in that period… but it’s not a Gears game if you’re not chainsawing Locust!” Fawcette laughs. 

Fans will also immediately recognise the trailer’s inclusion of ‘Mad World’, the Tears for Fears track famously covered by Gary Jules and used in commercials for the original Gears of War games. Composer Adam Lastiwka has masterfully reimagined the iconic “Mad World” track for the Gears of War: E-Day trailer, crafting an original instrumental that enhances Gary Jules’ haunting cover and aligns perfectly with the game’s darker, grittier themes.

This instrumental cover plays out as Marcus and Dom gaze out into the Locust-decimated ruins of the city – a callback to the profound emotional depth of the landmark 2006 commercial. Unlike typical video game promotions of its time, this ad stood out by portraying its hero as vulnerable and isolated, sharply contrasting with the over-the-top marketing norms of that era.

“Re-licensing the music was just the beginning,” Fawcette remarked. “The original Mad World commercial resonates because it portrayed a heroism rooted in vulnerability, not invincibility. We wanted to explore all the elements that made that ad memorable and impactful.” This reflection shaped the approach, ensuring the trailer did more than just evoke nostalgia. “Our goal was to explore and reinvigorate the foundational ideas of the series.”

As Marcus teeters on the edge in a fierce close-quarters battle with the Locust, he swiftly outsmarts the Drone by planting the Lancer into the wall, disengaging the bayonet and downing his foe with a kill shot. He takes a moment to recuperate, before plummeting through the floorboards to what would presumably be his death at the behest of a giant emergence hole. We’ve not seen E-Holes since Gears of War: Judgement and watching this cavernous void swallow up an entire building with ease is particularly terrifying. However, in this moment, we see the reveal of a young Dom Santiago reaching out to help him up, and for longtime fans, it’s an emotional homecoming like no other.

The Beginnings of Brotherhood

This story is of course, told from the perspectives of a much younger Marcus and Dom. While the pair are seasoned veterans of the Pendulum Wars (the human conflict taking place before the series begins), this is a wholly new threat for the pair to navigate: “The best Gears games have these super emotional themes around shared burden, belonging, trust and loyalty, and Marcus and Dom have a really interesting relationship going into E-Day ,” Searcy says. 

To give some background context leading into the story of E-Day , Marcus and Dom are connected through Dom’s older brother, Carlos, who died on the battlefield with Marcus. The pair were best friends, so Marcus and Dom are in the early stages of forming a kinship over a shared loss and navigating those emotions together. 

“We’re telling the origin story of Marcus and Dom and their bond… this is the bond that defines the franchise,” Searcy adds. “They’re not the characters we know from Gears 1 to 3 . They don’t have 10 years of fighting the Locust between them. When the game opens, there’s supposed to be peace on Sera, and they’re trying to figure out life without this person they both loved.” 

“People are going to see the formation of this brotherhood that is so iconic to Gears.” 

Dealing with the new Locust threat becomes the more pressing concern for the two friends over the course of E-Day , but those emotional beats will still course through the story as you play. Fawcette says this is particularly exciting: 

“They are a lot more vulnerable, and I think that’s a really modern take on those two characters,” Fawcette explains. “There’s a weight they carry between them, and that creates a really interesting tension as they navigate their own relationship. 

“You have this intimate story set amid this wider backdrop of what’s happening on this apocalyptic day. I think, for fans, it’ll be really compelling to dig deep and explore their bond and how it changes over time.” 

From The Ground Up  

Key to The Coalition’s vision is that, in another nod to the original game, E-Day won’t just be a marvel of gameplay and storytelling – but of technology, too. Game development has come a long way since the first Gears of War game and The Coalition, equipped with Unreal Engine 5, is prepared to take full advantage of this evolution to set new standards in technical prowess. 

When the original Gears of War launched, its “Mad World” trailer was nothing short of a revelation. Rendered entirely in-engine, it set a new benchmark for what gamers could expect directly from their gameplay experience—a rarity at a time when the chasm between cinematic trailers and actual game graphics was notably wide. Epic Games’ use of their own Unreal Engine not only showcased their confidence in the game’s visual and performance capabilities but also boldly declared the engine’s power.

The Coalition is honoring this legacy with the Gears of War: E-Day reveal trailer, powered by Unreal Engine 5. 

“With the advancements in Unreal Engine 5, the leap in technical capabilities is tremendous,” explains Kate Rayner, Studio Technical Director at The Coalition. This includes over 100 times more environment and character details than Gears 5 , hardware raytraced lighting, reflections and shadows, next generation destruction and gore, and cutting-edge animation technology, to name just a few of the countless improvements that will make Gears of War: E-Day an unrivalled visual experience.

“Our ambition is to, once again, set a new standard in technical excellence,” Rayner adds. “We have fully modernized Gears from the ground up, infusing the DNA of Gears with the full capabilities of modern gaming technology. Every character, environment, and animation in ‘ Gears of War: E-Day ‘ has been completely rebuilt in Unreal Engine 5, allowing us to portray the Gears universe with unprecedented detail and fidelity.”

“The original ‘Mad World’ trailer made a real statement by using in-engine footage. We’re pushing that even further with Unreal Engine 5,” Rayner continues. “Our goal with the announcement trailer was to highlight our commitment to pushing the boundaries of both storytelling and technology in gaming.”

Fawcette adds: “When you look at Marcus and Dom from the original games, they’re big beefy tanks, exaggerated in their design. As you’ve seen in the trailer, you can see how these guys have really come to life as human characters [in E-Day].” 

The Future of Gears

  Of course, this isn’t the end of other ongoing stories in the Gears series – the team is content with the stories told in Gears 4 and Gears 5 and is by no means abandoning them, but the collective passion for such an iconic origin story was simply too great to ignore. The story of E-Day and the origins of Marcus and Dom are such powerful, pivotal events that The Coalition couldn’t wait to tell it.  

“We’re super proud about Gears 4 and Gears 5 and the stories that were told,” Fawcette adds. “We’re not retreating from that storyline in any way. But in [this] moment, we had an opportunity to write our next step, and this one just felt too good to miss.” 

It’s also important to note that E-Day is not a spin-off, it’s a completely new entry to the mainline series, set earlier in the timeline. The events of the game not only serve as an exciting origin tale of two beloved characters, but it also adds detail and context to this period that will resonate through stories that will follow. In E-day, the Locust are not foes that our characters are accustomed to fighting. They are mysterious, formidable and overwhelming – an unforeseen horror that Marcus, Dom, and the rest of Sera must learn to deal with before it’s too late. Everything that happens in E-Day will shape the future of Gears of War for the better. 

This is the Gears of War story you’ve always wanted to hear, and it’s going to be incredible. To keep up to date with ongoing news about Gears of War: E-Day, follow @GearsofWar on X.  

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MENV Professional Development GSA

Dates of employment: June 2024 - August 2024

Submit your resume and qualifications to Brian Kennedy [email protected] by 11:59pm MDT on May 31, 2024. Interview process will begin the week of June 3 rd .

Who we are:

The Masters of the Environment (MENV) Graduate Program at the University of Colorado Boulder is an interdisciplinary professional master’s degree that equips students with the knowledge, skills, and experience necessary to address complex environmental challenges. The MENV program prepares students to become leaders in a wide range of careers in the environment, energy, natural resources, and sustainability. Through a comprehensive approach to professional education, MENV students received a graduate degree from one of the world’s preeminent universities in environmental and natural sciences, while simultaneously gaining valuable professional experience with an external client organization.

This Graduate Student Assistant position supports the Career and Professional Development program within the Masters of the Environment (MENV) Graduate Program at CU Boulder.

What your key responsibilities will be:

The Career and Professional Development program is seeking an MENV student who understands the types of internships, part-time jobs, and full-time jobs MENV students, graduates, and alumni want and can secure under competitive conditions. The Graduate Student Assistant will search and analyze known websites and other sources of job opportunities to create the bi-weekly Jobs Digest, manage the @menvjobs email inbox and use and maintain related databases.

The Graduate Student Assistant will be supervised by the Interim Assistant Director of Career and Professional Development and interact regularly with MENV’s other administrative staff.

The work will be performed remotely and/or in the MENV offices on the third floor of the SEEC building. The timing of the work is flexible and shall be performed in a manner that allows for timely review and distribution of the bi-weekly Jobs Digest. No travel is anticipated.

What we can offer:

The hourly wage for this position is $20/hour for approximately 4-5 hours per week. Some weeks may require more than 5 hours of work per week, but no more than 8, to meet deadlines. The position will begin in June 2024 and end in late August 2024.

What we require:

Bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university
Proficient in MS Office Suite

What you will need:

Outstanding interpersonal and communication skills.
Excellent professional writing and communication skills.
Excellent organizational and time management skills.
Strong attention to detail.
Experience navigating and reporting sensitive issues or information with good judgement and diplomacy.
The ability to work independently and collaboratively.
Working knowledge and experience with Constant Contact and other mass email systems and social media platforms

The University of Colorado does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, age, pregnancy, disability, creed, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, veteran status, political affiliation, or political philosophy. All qualified individuals are encouraged to apply. Click here for a list of ADA and Title IX coordinators . To view the Regent policy, please click here . This organization participates in E-Verify. We will provide the Social Security Administration and, if necessary, the Department of Homeland Security, with information from each employee's I-9 form to confirm work authorization.

Reasonable Accommodations for Applicants with Disabilities CU Boulder is committed to making information and resources that are available via the web accessible for all users. If you are a job seeker and need accessibility assistance or an accommodation in order to apply for one of our open positions, please submit an accessibility request or call 303-735-4357 (5-HELP) to submit a request for assistance.

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