Joe Haldeman

Major SF Awards

Joe William Haldeman was born in Oklahoma in 1943, the younger brother of Jack C. Haldeman II. Both would become famous SF writers, though Joe Haldeman's work would ultimately eclipse that of his elder sibling. Haldeman is one of the more 'literary' SF authors, possessing great skill in his prose and story craft. He obtained a degree in Physics and Astronomy in 1967, after which he was immediately drafted into the army, and he served a tour in Vietnam where he was injured and won a Purple Heart. His military experiences were clearly formative in much of his thinking and writing, and his thoughts and impressions on the subject of war and violence influenced his work through his career. Hi first novel, War Year (1972) was non-genre, and stemmed directly from his harrowing Vietnam experiences.

Hugo Awards
Hero (1972) – novella
The Forever War (1976) – novel
Tricentennial (1977) – short story
The Hemingway Hoax (1991) – novella
None So Blind (1995) – short story
Forever Peace (1998) – novel
Four Short Novels (2003) – short story

Nebula Award
The Forever War (1975) – novel
The Hemingway Hoax (1990) – novella
Graves (1993) – short story
Forever Peace (1998) – novel
Camouflage (2004) – novel

27th SFWA Grand Master Award (2009)
SF Hall of Fame Inductee (2012)

In 1975, Haldeman ​received a masters degree in creative writing from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop and also published what, for many, remains his greatest SF novel, The Forever War. In addition to publishing many great SF novels and short stories over the years, Haldeman was also an adjunct professor of writing at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a post he held from 1983 through 2014, when he retried.

Bad books on writing tell you to "write what you know", a solemn and totally false adage that is the reason there exist so many mediocre novels about English professors contemplating adultery.   --  Joe Haldeman