Howard Waldrop

Howard Waldrop was a science fiction author who works primarily in short fiction. Waldrop's stories combine elements such as alternate history, American popular culture, the American South, old movies (and character actors), classical mythology, and rock 'n' roll music. His style is sometimes obscure or elliptical: "Night of the Cooters" is a pastiche of H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds told from the perspective of a small town Texas sheriff (a homage to Slim Pickens) who finds an off-course Martian cylinder crashing down near his town; "Heirs of the Perisphere" involves robotic Disney characters waking up in the far future; "Fin de Cyclé" describes the Dreyfus affair from the perspective of bicycle enthusiasts. Waldrop's stories have received many nominations for the genre's awards; perhaps his best known work is the novelette "The Ugly Chickens" -- about the extinction of the dodo -- which won a Nebula Award and a World Fantasy Award. He was a member of the Turkey City Writer's Workshop, attended the Rio Hondo Writing Workshop, and taught at the Clarion Workshop. In 2004, he started writing movie reviews with Lawrence Person for Locus Online. He was a frequent attendee of ArmadilloCon, the local science fiction convention held annually in Austin, Texas. He was the Toastmaster at the very first ArmadilloCon (1979) and again at #29 in 2007; he was Guest of Honor at ArmadilloCon 5 (1983). Waldrop was one of three writer Guests of Honor at the 1995 World Fantasy Convention held in Baltimore and at Readercon 15 held in Burlington, Massachusetts, in 2003. Though born in Mississippi, Waldrop spent most of his life in Texas where he passed away in Austin.