Bradbury was free to start a career in writing when, owing to his bad eyesight, he was rejected for induction into the military during World War II. Inspired by science-fiction heroes such as Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers, he began publishing science-fiction stories in fanzines in 1938. He was invited by Forrest J. Ackerman to attend the Los Angeles Science Fiction Society, which at the time met at Clifton's Cafeteria in downtown Los Angeles. There he met Robert A. Heinlein, Emil Petaja, Fredric Brown, Henry Kuttner, Leigh Brackett and Jack Williamson. Bradbury's first published story was "Hollerbochen's Dilemma", in the January 1938 number of Ackerman's fanzine Imagination!.[1] In July 1939, Ackerman and his girlfriend Morojo gave 19-year-old Bradbury the money to head to New York for the First World Science Fiction Convention in New York City, and funded Bradbury's fanzine, Futuria Fantasia.[22] Bradbury wrote most of its four issues, each limited to under 100 copies. Between 1940 and 1947, he was a contributor to Rob Wagner's film magazine, Script.[13]
In 1939, Bradbury joined Laraine Day's Wilshire Players Guild, where for two years he wrote and acted in several plays. They were, as Bradbury later described, "so incredibly bad" that he gave up play-writing for two decades.[23] His first paid piece, "Pendulum", written with Henry Hasse, was published in the pulp magazine Super Science Stories in November 1941, for which he earned $15.[24]
Bradbury sold his first solo story, "The Lake", for $13.75 at 22 and became a full-time writer by 24.[21] His first collection of short stories, Dark Carnival, was published in 1947 by Arkham House, a small press in Sauk City, Wisconsin, owned by August Derleth. Reviewing Dark Carnival for the New York Herald Tribune, Will Cuppy proclaimed Bradbury "suitable for general consumption" and predicted that he would become a writer of the caliber of British fantasy author John Collier.[25]
After a rejection notice from the pulp Weird Tales, Bradbury submitted "Homecoming" to Mademoiselle, where it was spotted by a young editorial assistant named Truman Capote. Capote picked the Bradbury manuscript from a slush pile, which led to its publication. "Homecoming" won a place in the O. Henry Award Stories of 1947.[26]
Bradbury first published The Fireman, a short story about 25,000 words long, in Galaxy Science Fiction in February 1951. Bradbury was asked to extend it by 25,000 words so that it would be published as a novel. Bradbury got the title after the Los Angeles fire chief told him that book paper burns at 451 °F. In UCLA's Powell Library, in a study room with typewriters for rent for ten cents per half-hour., Bradbury wrote his classic story of a book burning future, Fahrenheit 451, which was about 50,000 words long, costing $9.80 from the typewriter-rental fees.[27]
A chance encounter in a Los Angeles bookstore with British expatriate writer Christopher Isherwood gave Bradbury the opportunity to put The Martian Chronicles into the hands of a respected critic. Isherwood's glowing review followed.[28]
