Is it true that Ellison once wrote a complete story while sitting in a bookstore display window?
Yes. In fact, he has written more than 40 stories that way and in other public places, including a live radio show. He sometimes asks spectators for a story title or theme and produces a story to match on the spot. Among the tales generated in this fashion: • “From A to Z, in the Chocolate Alphabet” (1976) • “Broken Glass” (1981) • “On the Slab” (1981) • “Stuffing” (1982) • “When Auld’s Aquaintance is Forgot” (1982) • “The Hour That Stretches” (1982) • “The Avenger of Death” (1986) • “Eidolins” (1987) • “From A to Z, in the Sarsaparilla Alphabet” (2001) • “Goodbye to All That” (2002) Ellison Under Glass, a three-volume compilation of HE’s shop-window works (subtitled, sequentially, He Cut Off Their Tails (Tales) With a Carving Knife; Chicanery Row; and The Eighth Day of Creation) was announced for publication in the early 1990s but has never appeared.
