He was born in Waukegan, Illinois, and his family moved several times, eventually settling in Los Angeles in 1934. Bradbury was a reader and writer throughout his youth. He graduated high school in Los Angeles but could not afford college. To make a living, he sold newspapers. He self-educated himself at the library and began to seriously write stories on the typewriter. He began to sell his first stories to pulp magazines in the early 1940's. His first book, the collection Dark Carnival, was published in 1947.
Notable works include:
He has also written stories for The Twilight Zone(though uncredited).
His short story "The Foghorn", in which a sea monster mistakes a foghorn for the mating cry of a female, was adapted into the film The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms in 1953. Several of his stories were adapted by EC Comics in the 1950s, and later, a number of his novels were made into films. The Martian Chronicles was made into a miniseries starring Rock Hudson in 1979. Also, adaptations of his short stories were used as the basis for a television series, the Ray Bradbury Theater, in the mid 1980's.
There is an asteroid named in his honor called (9766) Bradbury.