About Thomas M. Disch
Thomas Michael Disch (February 2, 1940 – July 4, 2008) was an American science fiction writer and poet. He won the Hugo Award for Best Related Book—previously called "Best Non-Fiction Book"—in 1999. He had two other Hugo nominations and nine Nebula Award nominations to his credit, plus one win of the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, a Rhysling Award, and two Seiun Awards, among others. In the 1960s, his work began appearing in science-fiction magazines. His critically acclaimed science fiction novels, The Genocides, Camp Concentration and 334 are major contributions to the New Wave science fiction movement. In 1996, his book The Castle of Indolence: On Poetry, Poets, and Poetasters was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and in 1999, Disch won the Nonfiction Hugo for The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of, a meditation on the impact of science fiction on culture, as well as the Michael Braude Award for Light Verse. Among his other nonfiction work, he wrote theatre and opera criticism for The New York Times, The Nation, and other periodicals. He published several volumes of poetry as Tom Disch. Following an extended period of depression after the death in 2005 of his life-partner, Charles Naylor, Disch stopped writing almost entirely, except for poetry and blog entries, although he did produce two novellas. Disch fatally shot himself on July 4, 2008, in his apartment in Manhattan, New York City. Naylor and Disch are buried alongside each other at Saint Johns Episcopal Church Columbarium, Dubuque, Iowa. His last book, The Word of God, which was written shortly before Naylor died, had just been published a few days before Disch's death. His last short story collection, The Wall of America, Disch's first in over 25 years, was published posthumously several months later. In a special 2024 edition, New Worlds, which had published much of his best science fiction, published the first few chapters of his unfinished science fiction comedy Peanut and Buster on the theme of humans and elephants marrying, riffing off the statement of a baseball-playing super-Christian's remarks about gay marriage. Disch's first formal education was at Catholic schools, as evidenced in some of his works which contain scathing criticisms of the Catholic Church. In the Saint Paul public schools, Disch discovered his long-term loves of science fiction, drama, and poetry.
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