"Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman (Author Biography)

Author Biography

From his early days, Harlan Ellison has been an individualist and social gadfly. Born in Cleveland on May 27, 1934, he published his first short story in 1947 in the Cleveland News. By the age of 17, he demonstrated his interest in science fiction by founding the Cleveland Science Fiction Society.

Ellison was not one to suffer the restrictions of academia. Although he attended Ohio State University for two years, he was asked to leave by University administrators. Subsequently, he went to New York where he continued his writing career. While in New York, he joined a gang in order to research his novel, Rumble. Ellison's next job was with the United States Army, serving from 1957 through 1959. In the years after his military service, Ellison started both a magazine, Rogue, and a publishing firm, Regency Books. Throughout this period, Ellison wrote many short stories and essays.

After moving to Los Angeles in 1962, Ellison began writing for television in addition to successfully publishing both novels and short stories. His list of credits for television include episodes of such popular shows as The Outer Limits, Burke's Law, and Route 66. His best-known television screenplay, however, was his script for Star Trek in 1967, "The City on the Edge of Forever." For this episode, he won a Hugo Award in 1967, and a Writer's Guild of America Award in 1968.

In 1965, Ellison wrote "'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman," perhaps his most famous and anthologized story. First appearing in Galaxy magazine in December 1965, the story received critical acclaim, winning both a Hugo and a Nebula Award. Subsequently, Ellison included the story in his 1965 collection, Paingod and Other Delusions. Although the volume takes as its subject agony in many different manifestations, stories such as "'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman" also suggest Ellison's sense of humor.

During these same years, Ellison wrote some of the stories for which he is most famous, collected in books such as I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream (1967) and The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World (1969). In 1967, Ellison edited and annotated one of the most important science fiction anthologies ever published, Dangerous Visions. This volume, and the 1972 Again, Dangerous Visions, firmly connected Ellison with "New Wave" science fiction, although this is a label that Ellison rejects.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Ellison continued to produce short stories, novels, screenplays, and essays, focusing on critical cultural commentaries. In 1987, a comprehensive collection of Ellison's work, The Essential Ellison: a 35-Year Retrospective was edited by Terry Dowling, with Richard Delap and Gil Lamont who updated the collection in 2001 with The Essential Ellison: a 50-Year Retrospective.

Although Ellison has been actively writing for more than fifty years, he continues to be involved in a dizzying array of activities. Ellison's long 1992 short story "The Man Who Rowed Christopher Columbus Ashore" appeared in the prestigious The Best American Short Stories (1993). In 2000 and 2001, he was a consultant and host for a radio series of 26 one-hour short story dramatizations. The series aired on National Public Radio and included an adaptation of "'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman." In addition, Ellison continues to produce graphic novels, computer games, screenplays, and an assortment of other creative works. Always the voice of resistance, in 2002, Ellison took America Online to court for copyright infringement. Ellison shows no signs of slowing the pace of his work; indeed, new technologies have opened new avenues for his fertile imagination.