{"id":18762,"date":"2025-05-31T14:11:47","date_gmt":"2025-05-31T21:11:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/heinleinsociety.org\/?p=18762"},"modified":"2025-05-31T14:23:37","modified_gmt":"2025-05-31T21:23:37","slug":"the-manana-literary-society","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/heinleinsociety.org\/the-manana-literary-society\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ma\u00f1ana Literary Society"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The casual Saturday \u201cat homes\u201d Robert and Leslyn had started for political purposes gradually changed over the course of 1939 into a writers\u2019 group for the local science-fiction professionals. If anything, the changeover of personalities could only have sharpened the sense of being involved in something purposivful and progressive: socializing with writers instead of politicians required less concentration on creating unity out of divisiveness\u2014fun they did not have to work at so hard.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Leslyn and Robert Heinlein<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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When Henry Kuttner and \u201cCat\u201d (C. L. Moore) moved to Laguna, they started coming up at least weekly. Cleve Cartmill introduced William Anthony Parker White, called \u201cA.P.,\u201d who was working for United Progressive News as a theater and music critic while trying to get work as a screenwriter. He was also an established mystery writer\u2014\u201cH. H. Holmes\u201d was his pen name\u2014with four published books under his belt. A.P. was witty and lively, and he elevated the tone of the group. It became the \u201cMa\u00f1ana\u201d (Spanish for \u201ctomorrow\u201d) Literary Society\u2014or MLS\u2014since its purpose, White said (though Heinlein appropriated the remark), was to save civilization by letting writers talk out stories instead of writing them\u2026<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Henry Kuttner and \u201cCat\u201d (C. L. Moore)<\/p><\/div>\n

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Cleve Cartmill<\/p><\/div>\n

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A. P. White, aka Anthony Boucher<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

A few of the fans from the local science-fiction club would be invited from time to time. Nineteen-year-old Ray Bradbury was rambunctious and so energetic that it made Leslyn tired to be in the same room with him; it was too much like having to manage a large and unruly puppy\u2014but Robert sensed in him a certain quality he wanted to encourage: Bradbury wrote one thousand words a day, every day, after hawking The Los Angeles Daily News on street corners. That impressed Heinlein, who confided to one interviewer: \u201c\u2018I read some of his stuff.\u2019 He leaned toward me for emphasis. \u2018It was awful. I said to myself, \u2018Here is a great writer.\u2019\u201d Bradbury\u2019s discipline and perseverance would force him to learn his craft. Heinlein patiently critiqued anything Bradbury brought him. When Bradbury brought him a manuscript that wasn\u2019t bad at all, Heinlein walked it over to Rob Wagner at Script magazine. Bradbury later related that Heinlein agented his first sale. <\/div>\n
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Ray Bradbury<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Robert A. Heinlein: Volume I: Learning Curve, 1907-1948 by William H. Patterson Jr.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The casual Saturday \u201cat homes\u201d Robert and Leslyn had started for political purposes gradually changed over the course of 1939 into a writers\u2019 group for the local science-fiction professionals. If anything, the changeover of personalities could only have sharpened the sense of being involved in something purposivful and progressive: socializing with writers instead of politicians…
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