Harlan Ellison

Harlan Ellison
Ellison in 1986
Born	Harlan Jay Ellison (1934-05-27) May 27, 1934 (age 82) Cleveland, Ohio, United States
Pen name	Cordwainer Bird, Nalrah Nosille, and 8 others
Occupation	Author, screenwriter, essayist
Period	1955–present
Genre	Speculative fiction, science fiction, fantasy, crime fiction, mystery, horror, film and television criticism
Literary movement	New Wave
Notable works	Dangerous Visions (editor), A Boy and His Dog, I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream,
Spouse	Charlotte B. Stein (1956–60; divorced) Billie Joyce Sanders (1960–63; divorced) Loretta (Basham) Patrick (1966; divorced) Lori Horowitz (1976 – c. 1977; divorced) Susan Toth (m. 1986)
Website
harlanellison.com/home.htm

Harlan Jay Ellison (born May 27, 1934) is an American writer. His principal genre is speculative fiction.

His published works include over 1,700 short stories, novellas, screenplays, comic book scripts, teleplays, essays, a wide range of criticism covering literature, film, television, and print media. He was editor and anthologist for two science fiction anthologies, Dangerous Visions (1967) and Again, Dangerous Visions (1972). Ellison has won numerous awards including multiple Hugos, Nebulas and Edgars.

Ellison was born to a Jewish family in Cleveland, Ohio, on May 27, 1934, the son of Serita (née Rosenthal) and Louis Laverne Ellison, a dentist and jeweler. His family subsequently moved to Painesville, Ohio, but returned to Cleveland in 1949, following his father's death. Ellison frequently ran away from home, taking an array of odd jobs—including, by age 18, "tuna fisherman off the coast of Galveston, itinerant crop-picker down in New Orleans, hired gun for a wealthy neurotic, nitroglycerine truck driver in North Carolina, short-order cook, cab driver, lithographer, book salesman, floorwalker in a department store, door-to-door brush salesman, and as a youngster, an actor in several productions at the Cleveland Play House".

Ellison attended the Ohio State University for 18 months (1951–53) before being expelled. He has said the expulsion was for hitting a professor who had denigrated his writing ability, and over the next twenty or so years he sent that professor a copy of every story he published.

Ellison published two stories in the Cleveland News during 1949, and he sold a story to EC Comics early in the 1950s. Ellison moved to New York City in 1955 to pursue a writing career, primarily in science fiction. Over the next two years, he published more than 100 short stories and articles. He married Charlotte Stein in 1956, but they divorced four years later. He said of the marriage, "four years of hell as sustained as the whine of a generator."