Columbia College creative writing teacher Sam Weller an accomplished author of five books. He also wrote for various magazines and websites such as Huffington Post and Slate Magazine. 

Weller originally wanted to be a filmmaker, but the more he delved into it the more he started to realize he was really only interested in the creative and storytelling side. He graduated from college and moved to Los Angeles at the age of 22 where he lived in an apartment in the shadier side of town. He became interested in alternative weeklies, and was able to acquire an internship at a company that produced them.

He then moved on to write his own articles and stories. Much of his work is inspired by Ray Bradbury, author of Fahrenheit 451. In fact, Weller talks about how he was introduced to Bradbury’s work before he was even born. While Weller’s mother was pregnant with him, his father would read her many of Bradbury’s stories.

Weller was always intrigued by Bradbury’s work, saying he was “a fantastic writer and one of the great imaginations of the 20th Century.”  That fascination stayed with him throughout his life, and led him down the path to becoming a storyteller. Much of his writing style is similar to the horror, goth, dystopian style Bradbury had.

At one point in his life, Weller was able to meet Ray Bradbury. He was writing a story on him for the Chicago Tribune and had the opportunity to fly out to his home in Los Angeles for an interview. The two of them hit it off during the interview and eventually began to grow close to one another.

Weller was then given the chance to write Bradbury’s biography. It came out in 2005 and was published by Harper Collins. He had never written a biography before, but was determined to share the immersive story of Bradbury’s life.

He went on to write The Last Interview for Bradbury, as well as help edit a tribute for Bradbury. Right now he’s finishing up a book named Dark Black. It is a series of short stories written in the same fashion that Bradbury would often write his stories in. It is to be released next year in 2020, the same year Bradbury would have turned 100.

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Isabelle Hunter

Weller makes a speech during Antioch Community High School's Storytellers Series.

Thanks to Bradbury’s influence, Weller now looks at life and passion in a new way. He believes that if people would delve into the world of Bradbury’s novels and life the way he did, they would experience the same kind of feeling.