24 Facts About Thomas Disch

Thomas Michael Disch was an American science fiction author and poet.

Thomas Disch won the Hugo Award for Best Related Book – previously called "Best Non-Fiction Book" – in 1999, and 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.

Thomas Disch's 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, Thomas Disch won the Nonfiction Hugo for The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of, a meditation on the impact of science fiction on our culture, as well as the Michael Braude Award for Light Verse.

Naylor and Thomas Disch are buried alongside each other at Saint Johns Episcopal Church Columbarium, Dubuque, Iowa.

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Thomas Disch describes poetry as his stepping-stone to the literary world.

Thomas Disch worked as an extra at the Metropolitan Opera House in productions of Spartacus for the Bolshoi Ballet, Swan Lake for the Royal Ballet, and Don Giovanni, Tosca and others for the Met.

Thomas Disch then went to night school at New York University, where classes on novella writing and utopian fiction developed his tastes for some of the common forms and topics of science fiction.

Thomas Disch entered the field of science fiction at a turning point, as the pulp adventure stories of its older style began to be challenged by a more serious, darker style.

Rather than trying to compete with mainstream writers on the New York literary scene, Thomas Disch published work in science fiction and literary magazines, and began to speak with a new voice.

Thomas Disch traveled widely and lived in England, Spain, Rome, and Mexico.

Thomas Disch's writing includes substantial periodical work, such as regular book and theater reviews for The Nation, The Weekly Standard, Harper's, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, the Times Literary Supplement, and Entertainment Weekly.

Thomas Disch shared his Manhattan apartment and a house in Barryville, New York, with his partner of three decades, poet and fiction writer Charles Naylor.

Thomas Disch wrote on a LiveJournal account from April 2006 until his death, in which he posted poetry and journal entries.

Shortly before Disch's death, in September and October 2007 literary critic Peter Swirski conducted email interviews with Disch concerning his novels The M D A Horror Story and 334.

Thomas Disch was an outspoken atheist as well as a satirist; his last novel The Word of God was published by Tachyon Publications in the summer of 2008.

Thomas Disch's last published work, the posthumous story collection The Wall of America, contains speculative fiction from the last half of Disch's career.

In 1986, Thomas Disch collaborated with New Jersey software company Cognetics Corporation and games publisher Electronic Arts to create the interactive fiction text adventure Amnesia, which could be played on the Commodore 64, IBM PC or Apple II computers.

Thomas Disch proffers the theory that Wallace penned Ben-Hur, in part, to assuage his guilt over his part in the execution of Mary Surratt.

Thomas Disch's first published poems, though reaching print later – the first in 1964, though not collected until 1972 – were written alongside the stories and novels which made his name in the 1960s.

Thomas Disch's poetry includes experiments within traditional forms, such as a collaborative sonnet cycle Highway Sandwiches with Marilyn Hacker and Charles Platt and Haikus of an AmPart, while others like The Dark Old House mix stricter and freer form.

Thomas Disch continued to regularly publish poetry in magazines and journals such as Poetry, Light, Paris Review, Partisan Review, Parnassus: Poetry in Review and even Theology Today .

Thomas Disch published two collections of poetry criticism, The Castle of Indolence: On Poetry, Poets, and Poetasters and The Castle of Perseverance: Job Opportunities in Contemporary Poetry.

Thomas Disch preferred to publish his poems in his LiveJournal account.