Ellen Datlow reports that author Thomas M. Disch committed suicide on 4 July 2008, and that his body was found in his apartment by a friend. Disch was born in Des Moines, Iowa, on 2 February 1940, and his first novel, The Genocides, appeared in 1965. As a science fiction writer, he was part of the New Wave, but he movied into horror in the 1980s. He also wrote poetry, non-fiction, essays, and reviews. His most recent novel, The Word of God, was just published by Tachyon Publications.
Some of his more popular works included those aimed at younger readers, such as The Brave Little Toaster—which became an animated film in 1987, as did its sequel, The Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars—and his A Child's Garden of Grammar (1997). He won his only Hugo in 1999 for Best Related Book, for The Dreams Our Stuff is Made Of: How Science Fiction Conquered the World.
Disch had been depressed since the 2004 death of his partner, Charles Naylor. The two had been together for three decades.
His Wikipedia entry is somewhat in depth, and his ISFDB bibliography seems complete.
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