'The Author Who Wrote in Bookstore Windows'

In 1998, legendary sci-fi author Harlan Ellison responded to a challenge from Chris Carter, creator of The X-Files, to write a story based on this premise: The 102-year-old pregnant corpse. Mental Floss noted that, "one by one, the pages went up in the window. They were immaculately typed, spaced, and edited in his head long before his fingers hit the keys.... When the Dangerous Visions bookstore in Sherman Oaks, Calif., closed that day, Harlan Ellison had completed 'Objects of Desire in the Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear.' "

Harlan Ellison

Ellison "began public compositions in bookstore windows in the 1970s, inspired by French author Georges Simenon, who was rumored to have written an entire novel while sitting in a glass cage," Mental Floss wrote. He "churned out stories in bookstore windows overlooking Washington, London, Boston and New York. Good ones, too. The five days he spent in the window of A Change of Hobbit in Santa Monica in 1977 resulted in work that garnered three awards."

When people grew suspicious he was plotting out stories in advance, he began soliciting premises. In 2002, "at the Booksmith in San Francisco, Robin Williams gave him the springboard 'Computer Vampyre.' Ellison, who disliked working with computers, grunted but wrote a story, 'Keyboard,' anyway," Mental Floss noted. His efforts "raised some charitable funds, brought attention to independent booksellers, and intensified his own reputation as an author who never once considered the act of writing as a mechanical exercise."

Powered by: Xtenit