Harlan Ellison is a prolific editor and writer of novels, short stories, essays, and screenplays. His fiction includes crime stories, mysteries, mainstream fiction, and science fiction. Although he is most strongly identified with science fiction, he balks at being categorized. Ellison maintains that his influences—Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce, Henry David Thoreau, and Edgar Allan Poe—also defy neat categorization.

Ellison was born on May 27, 1934, in Cleveland, Ohio, to Louis Laverne (a dentist and jeweler) and Serita. As a child, Ellison performed at a local children's playhouse, but his creative interests soon turned to writing. At the age of thirteen, he saw his first story published in the Cleveland News. Three years later, he formed the Cleveland Science Fiction Society.

Ellison left Ohio State University in 1954 after only a year and pursued a career as a professional writer in New York. Within two years...