The Essential Ellison
"In April of 1949, Harlan Ellison was a lonely little kid living in Painesville, Ohio. A time traveler, observing him from within an invisible bubble, would not have marked him as anything more interesting than an undersized fourteen-year-old, seemingly always in hot water. Lively blue eyes, but basically just another kid.".

"But something was stirring, something was wakening in that nexus of energy. And in The Cleveland News of June 7th, little more than a week after he turned fifteen, Harlan Ellison's first professional writing appeared in print: the initial installment of a five-part adventure serial (liberally cribbed from Sir Walter Scott) titled "The Sword of Parmagon."".

"Now, in a retrospective, 50 years of the best of Harlan Ellison has been assembled in a volume exceeding 1200 pages, encompassing fiction, essays, personal reminiscences, reviews and (published for the first time anywhere) a complete teleplay. Eight-six complete and (with one exception) unabridged examples of the nonpareil writings of the man The Los Angeles Times labels "the 20th Century Lewis Carroll.""--BOOK JACKET.
American Science fiction, Science fiction, American, Science fiction, american, Fiction, science fiction, general, Fantasy fiction
Harlan Ellison
Harlan Ellison was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the son of a Jewish-American family.  His family moved to Painesville, Ohio, but returned to Cleveland in 1949 after the death of his father.  As a child, he performed in minstrel shows, and frequently ran away from home, taking odd jobs.  He attended Ohio State University but was expelled after 18 months for hitting a professor who had denigrated his writing ability.  He moved to New York City in 1955 to become a science fiction writer.  Over the next two years, he published more than 100 short stories and articles.  In 1957, he joined a street gang in Brooklyn as research for his novel Web of the City/Rumble and short story collection The Deadly Streets.  In the late 1950s, he wrote erotic fiction under the pseudonym Cordwainer Bird.  Later, he used the pseudonym for works that he felt were warped beyond his original intention by editors or producers.

He was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1957 and returned to New York in 1960, before moving to Chicago, to write for Rogue magazine and work as an editor for Regency Books.  In 1962, he moved to California and began writing for Hollywood film studios in.  His first screenplay was for the film The Oscar.  He also wrote scripts for television shows such as The Flying Nun, Burke's Law, Route 66, The Outer Limits, Star Trek, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Cimarron Strip.  
During the late 1960s, he also wrote a column about political and social issues in television for the Los Angeles Free Press titled "The Glass Teat."

Ellison has won ten Hugo Awards, four Nebula Awards, and five Bram Stoker Awards (presented by the Horror Writers Association) including the Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996.  He has written nine novels, hundreds of short stories, and many articles and essays.  He continues to write from his home in Los Angeles, California with Susan, his fifth wife.