{"id":7523,"date":"2026-08-05T14:52:53","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T06:52:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jonathanstrahan.com.au\/wp\/?p=7523"},"modified":"2026-08-05T14:52:53","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T06:52:53","slug":"episode-727-ray-bradburys-million-year-picnic-with-jeffrey-ford-and-kelly-link","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jonathanstrahan.com.au\/wp\/2026\/08\/05\/episode-727-ray-bradburys-million-year-picnic-with-jeffrey-ford-and-kelly-link\/","title":{"rendered":"Episode 727: Ray Bradbury&#8217;s Million Year Picnic (with Jeffrey Ford and Kelly Link)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Martian_Chronicles\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/mcdn.podbean.com\/mf\/web\/ta5f3u6yev32tkc3\/martian.jpeg\" alt=\"martian.jpeg\" width=\"250\" height=\"365\" align=\"right\" hspace=\"20\" vspace=\"20\" \/><\/a>Can you believe a storyteller? Ray Bradbury was a consummate storyteller who, in the introduction to his 1950 short story collection <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Martian_Chronicles\"><em>The Martian Chronicles<\/em><\/a>, offered a possible origin story for the work.<\/p>\n<p>He had, he recalled, been 24 years of age when he read Sherwood Anderson&#8217;s <em>Winesburg Ohio<\/em>, a collection of stories about small-town life. \u00a0The book inspired him to wonder if he could do something similar for American small-town life, but set on Mars.<\/p>\n<p>In amongst his other commitments, he set sail on a journey that ultimately would see him produce close to three dozen short stories set on the red planet. The first, &#8220;The Million Year Picnic&#8221; appeared in 1946, but they followed over the next four years. At some point between then and 1948 Bradbury set the notion of a book to one side and it was only when he travelled to New York in 1949 that he picked the task up once more.<\/p>\n<p>Doubleday editor Walter Bradbury was interested in publishing Bradbury, but needed a novel to anchor the deal. It was he who suggested that Bradbury should sketch out a plan for a book, and who then signed it up and published it the following year. \u00a0<em>The Martian Chronicles<\/em> went on to international acclaim, selling millions of copies across many, many editions, and remaining one of Bradbury&#8217;s most famous works.<\/p>\n<p>The recent 80th anniversary of the first appearance of &#8220;The Million Year Picnic&#8221; and the passing this week of August 4, 2026 (the date specified in &#8220;There Will Come Soft Rains&#8221;) inspired Gary and Jonathan to sit down with Jeffrey Ford and Kelly Link to discuss the continuing relevance of Bradbury&#8217;s classic work.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none; min-width: min(100%, 430px); height: 150px;\" title=\"Episode 727: Ray Bradbury's Million Year Picnic (with Jeffrey Ford and Kelly Link)\" src=\"https:\/\/www.podbean.com\/player-v2\/?i=8z38a-1b26db6-pb&amp;from=pb6admin&amp;share=1&amp;download=1&amp;rtl=0&amp;fonts=Courier%20New&amp;skin=f6f6f6&amp;font-color=auto&amp;logo_link=episode_page&amp;btn-skin=c73a3a\" width=\"100%\" height=\"150\" scrolling=\"no\" data-name=\"pb-iframe-player\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Can you believe a storyteller? Ray Bradbury was a consummate storyteller who, in the introduction to his 1950 short story collection The Martian Chronicles, offered a possible origin story for the work. He had, he recalled, been 24 years of age when he read Sherwood Anderson&#8217;s Winesburg Ohio, a collection of stories about small-town life. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jonathanstrahan.com.au\/wp\/2026\/08\/05\/episode-727-ray-bradburys-million-year-picnic-with-jeffrey-ford-and-kelly-link\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Episode 727: Ray Bradbury&#8217;s Million Year Picnic (with Jeffrey Ford and Kelly Link)<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-54","category-podcasts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathanstrahan.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathanstrahan.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathanstrahan.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathanstrahan.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathanstrahan.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7523"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathanstrahan.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7523\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7525,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathanstrahan.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7523\/revisions\/7525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathanstrahan.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathanstrahan.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathanstrahan.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}