Harlan Jay Ellison May 27, β June 28, [ 3 ] was an American writer, known for his prolific and influential work in New Wave speculative fiction [ 4 ] and for his outspoken, combative personality. Some of his best-known works include the Star Trek episode " The City on the Edge of Forever ", considered by some to be the single greatest episode of the Star Trek franchise [ 6 ] he subsequently wrote a book about the experience that includes his original teleplay , his A Boy and His Dog cycle which was made into a film , and his short stories " I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream " later adapted by Ellison into a video game and " 'Repent, Harlequin!
Ellison won numerous awards, including multiple Hugos , Nebulas , and Edgars. She died in without having spoken to him since their mother's funeral in Some time after Beverly's birth, his family moved to Painesville , Ohio, but returned to Cleveland in , following his father's death. Ellison frequently ran away from home in an interview with Tom Snyder he would later claim it was due to discrimination by his high school peers , taking an array of odd jobsβincluding, by age 18, "tuna fisherman off the coast of Galveston , itinerant crop-picker down in New Orleans, hired gun for a wealthy neurotic, nitroglycerine truck driver in North Carolina , short-order cook, cab driver, lithographer , book salesman, floorwalker in a department store, door-to-door brush salesman, and as a youngster, an actor in several productions at the Cleveland Play House ".
Ellison attended Ohio State University for 18 months β53 before being expelled. He said the expulsion was for hitting a professor, a certain Dr. Shedd, who had denigrated his writing ability.
Over the next 20 or so years he sent that professor a copy of every story that he published. Ellison published two serialized stories in the Cleveland News during , [ 2 ] and he sold a story to EC Comics early in the s. During this period, Ellison was an active and visible member of science fiction fandom , and published his own science fiction fanzines , such as Dimensions which had previously been the Bulletin of the Cleveland Science Fantasy Society for the Cleveland Science Fantasy Society, and later Science Fantasy Bulletin.
Ellison moved to New York City in to pursue a writing career, primarily in science fiction. Over the next two years, he published more than short stories and articles. The short stories collected as Sex Gang β which Ellison described in a interview as "mainstream erotica " [ 15 ] β date from this period.
