A Teller of Tales

Bradbury’s six-year odyssey to celebrate and explore the history of Halloween opens chapter 3, culminating in the shift from a screen project to the 1972 publication of The Halloween Tree. In 1972 Bradbury also opened the “Cosmic Evolution” lecture series in San Francisco, sponsored in part by the NASA/Ames Research Center. Chapter 3 concludes with Bradbury’s entry into the world of writing conferences, first with Writer’s Community at Squaw Valley and then with the annual Santa Barbara Writers’ Conference, where he would lecture and work with writers for more than thirty years. At the urging of Shel Dorf, Bradbury’s role as a perennial featured presence at the San Diego Comic Con also began in the early 1970s.