Ray Bradbury was a singular, irreplaceable figure in American letters, and the most wonderfully inspirational speaker our Santa Barbara Writers Conference ever had. Losing him is a great blow to every one of us who knew him and shared his love of the written word. For almost forty years, his voice opened the conference, his talk kick-started a week of passion and devotion to idea of being a writer. Indeed, my own father used to bring friends down from Northern California just to hear Ray speak about the reasons we write, and why nothing and nobody should ever dissuade us from putting words on a page. We will greatly miss that unbounded enthusiasm, that booming and irreverent voice, his terrific adoration of books and undying creativity, but we will never forget the road he directed us to follow. Safe travels, Ray!
– Monte Schulz
