Harlan Ellison was born on May 27, 1934, in Cleveland, Ohio, the son of Louis Laverne and Serita Rosenthal Ellison. As a youngster, he appeared in several productions at the Cleveland Playhouse. He demonstrated an early attraction to science fiction, publishing his first short story in 1947 in the Cleveland News. Three years later, he founded the Cleveland Science Fiction Society.

Ellison attended Ohio State University for two years. He left Ohio State for New York City to pursue his writing career. While in New York, he joined a gang under a pseudonym, and used the information he gathered there as the basis of a novel, Rumble. He then worked at several jobs before joining the United States Army in 1957. After serving two years, he left the army and began his own publication, a magazine called Rogue. Soon after, he founded his own publishing firm, Regency Books. During the...