Besides being born (that is an ordeal, no less an ordeal because you forget it) the worst thing to be gone through is to be a new boy in a small Southern town. Lafferty was the winner of the Hugo and World Fantasy Award and a six time Nebula Award Nominee. His quirky style made his work hard to pigeonhole and market, but he still managed to influence a wide array of today's best writers. Simply on of the best writers the science fiction and fantasy field has ever produced.