What is the Bradbury Challenge?
For a thousand nights, read one short story, one poem and one essay. That is the whole challenge.
Where it comes from
Ray Bradbury, the author of Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles, gave this advice to young writers for decades, most famously in a talk at a writers' symposium in 2001. His point was simple: a writer's head has to be stocked before anything good can come out of it. Short stories teach you how much can happen in a few pages. Poems teach you to listen to words and to notice. Essays give you ideas, arguments and other people's ways of thinking. Read all three, every night, and after a thousand nights you will have a head full of them.
In the same talks he paired it with a second piece of advice: write one short story a week, for a year. His reasoning was that nobody can write fifty-two bad stories in a row.
Why it works
- It is small. A poem takes a minute or two, a story perhaps twenty, an essay a little more. It fits into an evening.
- It is varied. Three forms, every day, keep you out of a reading rut.
- It adds up. A thousand days is three thousand texts: more than most people read in a lifetime of good intentions.
How to do it
- Open today's readings. There is a new poem, essay and short story every day at midnight, Lisbon time.
- Read them in any order, in one sitting or across the day. Each one opens on the site that published it, free to read in full.
- Tick each one as you finish it. Your progress is kept in your own browser, with no account.
- Missed a day? The archive keeps every past day.
Tips
- Read poems twice, and at least once out loud.
- Keep a notebook for lines, ideas and names you want to come back to. A few notebooks and pens we like.
- If you write, notice how each text begins and ends: openings and endings are where writers reveal their craft.
- Read with someone else. A friend, a partner or a class doing the same three texts gives you something to talk about.
Questions
What is the Bradbury Challenge?
A reading habit based on Ray Bradbury's advice to writers: every night for a thousand nights, read one short story, one poem and one essay.
How long does the Bradbury Challenge take?
A thousand nights is a little under three years. Most people take it one day at a time and do not worry about the total.
Do I have to be a writer?
No. Bradbury gave the advice to writers, but it works for anyone who wants to read more widely and more often.
What if I miss a day?
Pick up again the next day. Every past day stays in the archive, so you can catch up if you want to, but there is no penalty for a gap.
Where do I find a poem, an essay and a short story every day?
Bradbury Challenge chooses three free texts every day, from established literary publishers and archives, and links to them on its home page.
More about this site and its sources on the About page. Follow the daily readings by RSS.