 Thomas Michael Disch was an American science fiction author and poet.
He was born in Des Moines, Iowa, on 2 February 1940. He was home-schooled by his mother, Helen, for a year and as a result skipped from kindergarten to second grade, thereafter spending his formal education within Catholic schools, evidenced through some scathing criticisms of the Catholic Church in his writings.
Disch discovered poetry, science fiction and drama while attending Minneapolis public schools and continued to be influenced by these early fascinations throughout his writing career.
He worked as a trainee steel draftsman after graduating high school in 1957. At the age of 17 he moved to New York City, finding an apartment in Manhattan. He worked at various different jobs in the year that followed, including as an extra at the Metropolitan Opera House, the Bolshoi Ballet and the Royal Ballet, and also as a bookstore clerk and later for a newspaper.
At 18 years old the poor, friendless, gay teenager unsuccessfully attempted suicide by gas oven, and later that year enlisted in the army where his incompatibility with the armed forces resulted in commitment to a mental hospital for nearly three months.
Upon being discharged Disch returned to New York, working again at a bookstore, as a copywriter, magazine theatre critic and at an insure company. He attended night school at New York University and took classes on novella writing. He decided to write a short story instead of study for his midterm exams and sold the story to the magazine Fantastic for $112.50.
He did not return to school but from this point on pursued his writing career while working a number of odd jobs to earn money.
Some of his critically acclaimed works include The Genocides (his first published novel), Camp Concentration, 334 and On Wings of Song, all of which 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 his The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of won the Non-Fiction Hugo and the Michael Braude Award for Light Verse.
His writing slowed down after the death of his partner, Charles Naylor, in 2005 and all he produced up until his death in 2008 was poetry and two novellas. He died on 4 July 2008 by a fatal self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. His last book, The Word of God, written shortly before Naylor died, was published a few days before he committed suicide. [edit]
|
|
More Science Fiction Authors
Spruill, Steven G
Mason, Frank
Cakan, Myra
Weinstein, Howard
Endore, Guy
View as Title Search
|
