James Morrow (born March 17, 1947) is an American

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living wage, living writing novels and other fiction, while other ...

and short-story writer known for filtering large philosophical and

theological Theology is the study of religious belief from a religious perspective, with a focus on the nature of divinity. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of an ...

questions through his satiric sensibility. Most of Morrow's oeuvre has been published as science fiction and fantasy, but he is also the author of two unconventional historical novels, '' The Last Witchfinder'' and ''Galápagos Regained''. He variously describes himself as a "scientific humanist," a "bewildered pilgrim," and a "child of the Enlightenment". Morrow presently lives in

Huntingdon, Pennsylvania Huntingdon is a borough in and county seat of Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania, in the Middle Atlantic states region of the Northeastern United States. It lies along the Juniata River about east of larger Altoona and west of the state capita ...

with his second wife, Kathryn Smith Morrow, and their three dogs.

Early life and education

James Kenneth Morrow was born in

Germantown, Philadelphia Germantown () is an area in Northwest Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded by Palatines, Palatine, Quaker, and Mennonite families in 1683 as an independent borough (Pennsylvania), borough, it was absorbed into Philadelphia in 1854. The area, whi ...

, on March 17, 1947, the only child of Emily Morrow, née Develin, and William Morrow (no relation to the publisher of the same name). During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, the U.S. Army exempted Bill Morrow from the draft owing to his employment by the

Midvale Steel Midvale Steel was a succession of steel-making corporations whose flagship plant was the Midvale Steel Works in Nicetown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The mill operated from 1867 until 1976. In the 1880s, Frederick Winslow Taylor rose through th ...

Works. After the war, Emily and William bought a small house in the Philadelphia suburb of

Roslyn, Pennsylvania Roslyn is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is mostly in Abington Township, and extends into Upper Dublin Township as of 2020. Originally called Hillside, the name Ros ...

, a choice driven largely by the sterling reputation of Abington Township's public-school system. James Morrow attributes his fiction-writing career directly to the humanities curriculum at Abington Senior High School. In particular, his exposure to James Giordano's tenth-grade World Literature class prompted him to imagine himself one day composing novels and stories inspired by the philosophically inclined authors in the syllabus, among them

Dante Dante Alighieri (; most likely baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri; – September 14, 1321), widely known mononymously as Dante, was an Italian Italian poetry, poet, writer, and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', originally called ...

Voltaire François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778), known by his ''Pen name, nom de plume'' Voltaire (, ; ), was a French Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment writer, philosopher (''philosophe''), satirist, and historian. Famous for his wit ...

Dostoyevsky Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. () was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist and journalist. He is regarded as one of the greatest novelists in both Russian and world literature, and many of his works are considered highly influenti ...

Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a novelist and writer from Prague who was Jewish, Austrian, and Czech and wrote in German. He is widely regarded as a major figure of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of real ...

, Camus, and

Ibsen Henrik Johan Ibsen (; ; 20 March 1828 – 23 May 1906) was a Norwegian playwright, poet and actor. Ibsen is considered the world's pre-eminent dramatist of the 19th century and is often referred to as "the father of modern drama." He pioneered ...

. Throughout his adolescence Morrow produced a series of 8 mm genre films with his friends at Abington High School, including

Joe Adamson Joe Adamson is an author of several books, including: * ''Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Sometimes Zeppo: A History of the Marx Brothers and a Satire on the Rest of the World'' * ''Tex Avery, King of Cartoons'' * ''Bugs Bunny: 50 Years and Only One Gre ...

, who ultimately made documentary films in Los Angeles;

David E. Stone David E. Stone (born December 11, 1947) is an American sound editor. He won an Academy Award for the film '' Bram Stoker's Dracula'' for Best Sound Editing during the 65th Academy Awards, he shared his Oscar with Tom C. McCarthy. He has over ...

, who became a Hollywood sound editor; and George Shelps, who remained in the Philadelphia area and became a suburban planner. The output of "Abington-International Movie Company" encompassed adaptations of

Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe (; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic who is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales involving mystery and the macabre. He is widely re ...

's ''

The Tell-Tale Heart "The Tell-Tale Heart" is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1843. It is told by an unnamed narrator who endeavors to convince the reader of the narrator's sanity while simultaneously describing a murder the nar ...

'',

August Derleth August William Derleth (February 24, 1909 – July 4, 1971) was an American writer and anthologist. He was the first book publisher of the writings of H. P. Lovecraft. He made contributions to the Cthulhu Mythos and the Lovecraftian horror, cosmi ...

and

Mark Schorer Mark Schorer (May 17, 1908 – August 11, 1977) was an American writer, critic, and scholar born in Sauk City, Wisconsin. Biography Schorer earned an MA at Harvard and his Ph.D. in English at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1936. During ...

's " The Return of Andrew Bentley", and

Samuel Taylor Coleridge Samuel Taylor Coleridge ( ; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets with his friend William Wordsworth ...

's ''

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner ''The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'' (originally ''The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere''), written by English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1797–98 and published in 1798 in the first edition of '' Lyrical Ballads'', is a poem that recounts th ...

'', which received an Honorable Mention in the 1964 ''Kodak Movie News'' Teen-Age Movie Contest. While an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania, Morrow met his living expenses by working as a filmmaker for the Philadelphia Public Schools, shooting and editing a series of 16 mm films documenting and celebrating the innovations for which the system was famous in the late 1960s. Upon receiving his BA degree from Penn in 1969, Morrow moved to Somerville, Massachusetts, so he could attend the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE).

Pre-fiction career

After receiving an

MAT A mat is a hard or soft floor covering that generally is placed on a floor or other flat surface. Mats serve a range of purposes including: * serving to clean items passed over it, such as a doormat, which removes dirt from the soles of shoe ...

from Harvard in 1970, Morrow found work in the Boston area as an instructional media specialist and graphic artist, first in the Newton Public Schools (1971–1973) and then in the Chelmsford Public Schools (1973–1978). Among the curriculum materials he produced during these years were ''Moviemaking Illustrated: The Comicbook Filmbook'' (Hayden Book Company, 1973, coauthored with Murray Suid), and ''Media and Kids: Real World Learning in the Schools'' (Hayden Book Company, 1977, also coauthored with Murray Suid). From 1972 to 1973, Morrow reunited with high-school filmmaking friends Adamson and Stone to create a 16 mm satiric short called ''

A Political Cartoon ''A Political Cartoon'' is a 1974 American satiric independent short film produced by James K. Morrow, Joe Adamson and David E. Stone. Combining live-action and animation, the short follows a political campaign manager and a cartoonist who d ...

'', which tells of a cartoon character who gets elected President of the United States.Stone, Dave, Joe Adamson, and Jim Morrow. "Shooting A Political Cartoon." Filmmakers Newsletter 8.3 (January 1975): 18–22. This 22-minute film was distributed by The Creative Film Society and exhibited at the Orson Welles Cinema in

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is a suburb in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, located directly across the Charles River from Boston. The city's population as of the 2020 United States census, ...

in 1974, and would be released on

VHS VHS (Video Home System) is a discontinued standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes, introduced in 1976 by JVC. It was the dominant home video format throughout the tape media period of the 1980s and 1990s. Ma ...

Kino Video Kino Lorber is an international film distribution company based in New York City. Founded in 1977, it was originally known as Kino International until it was acquired by and merged into Lorber HT Digital in 2009. It specializes in art house films ...

as a part of ''Cartoongate!'' (1996), a compilation reel of animated shorts. In 1972 Morrow married Jean Pierce, a fellow HGSE graduate. They had two children, Kathleen and Christopher. The couple separated in 1995. Morrow married Kathryn Smith—a bookseller, freelance editor, independent scholar, and occasional critic—in 1996. During the 1980s, Morrow worked as one of the principal writers for the biannual periodical, ''A Teacher's Guide to NOVA'' (WGBH Educational Foundation). He also became a regular contributor to ''TV Guide'' magazine, writing such commentaries as "TV Didn't Turn Us into Lemmings and Vikings" (October 9, 1982), "Big Brother Isn't Watching—Yet" (January 28, 1984), "We Need a Nightly News Show on the Nuclear Arms Race" (March 8, 1986), and "The Best Way to Watch TV? Noisily and Together" (April 11, 1987). In 1977, TSR published James Morrow's murder-mystery board game, ''Suspicion'', which he was inspired to create after seeing the 1974 movie adaptation of ''Murder on the Orient Express''. Six years later, Morrow was hired by Circuits and Systems, a New Hampshire firm, to design the graphics and help shape the script for ''

Fortune Builder ''Fortune Builder'' is a 1984 simulation video game developed by Circuits and Systems and published by Coleco Industries for the Colecovision. One of the only simulation titles available for the Colecovision at the time, the game is an economic ...

'' (1984), a ColecoVision game sometimes regarded as a forerunner to ''SimCity''.

Fiction career

With the publication of his first novel, ''The Wine of Violence'', in 1981, James Morrow embarked on a full-time career as a writer of comedic but philosophically informed fiction, thus fulfilling the pact he'd made with his tenth-grade self to participate in the universe of ideas opened up to him by James Giordano's World Literature class. Over the course of the next thirty-four years, Morrow produced ten novels, three stand-alone novellas, and several dozen short stories, many of them satirizing conventional Christian arguments about the workings of the universe. Beyond his fascination with religious questions, Morrow's characteristic themes include the folly of war, the necessity of feminism, and the parent-child bond. Ever since high school, his worldview has been essentially secular and

atheistic Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...

. On the whole, Morrow's work has been favorably received by critics, both within the science-fiction community and the mainstream literary world. ''The Last Witchfinder'' (2006) was praised by both ''New York Times'' reviewer

Janet Maslin Janet R. Maslin (born August 12, 1949) is an American journalist, who served as a film critic for ''The New York Times'' from 1977 to 1999, serving as chief critic for the last six years, and then a literary critic from 2000 to 2015. In 2000, M ...

and ''Washington Post Book World'' editor Ron Charles. Early in 2010, on the strength of the Russian translations of his novel ''

Only Begotten Daughter ''Only Begotten Daughter'' is a 1990 fantasy novel by American writer James K. Morrow, setting the stage for his later '' Godhead Trilogy''. The book shared the 1991 World Fantasy Award with Ellen Kushner's ''Thomas the Rhymer''. It was also ...

'' (1990) and collection ''Bible Stories for Adults'' (1996), Morrow was invited to participate in the Fifteenth International Tolstoy Conference. After spending a week in Moscow, he and Kathryn traveled to Tolstoy's estate, where the author delivered a paper titled, "Charles Darwin Comes to Yasnaya Polyana," a scholarly thought-experiment spun from Morrow's ''Galápagos Regained'', his novel (then in progress) about the coming of the Darwinian worldview. Around the time of the Tolstoy Conference, Morrow's dark theological comedy ''Blameless in Abaddon'' (1996) came to the attention of

Bernard Schweizer Bernard Schweizer (née Bernhard Schweizer, born, 1962) is a Professor Emeritus of English at Long Island University, Brooklyn. He has published several books and essay collections on topics in British and European literatures. He is a leading Rebe ...

, a professor at Long Island University, Brooklyn, who invited the novelist to join him and NYU's

Gregory T. Erickson Gregory may refer to: People and fictional characters * Gregory (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * Gregory (surname), a surname *Gregory (The Walking Dead), fictional character from the walking ...

in establishing an organization dedicated to celebrating the heretical, blasphemous, and religiously unorthodox dimensions of literature and art. On May 3, 2013, the International Society for Heresy Studies was inaugurated at the Torch Club of

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

. Beyond Schweizer, Erickson, and Morrow, the founders included philosopher and novelist Rebecca Newberger Goldstein and literary critic and novelist James Wood.

Novels

Morrow's first two novels were overtly science-fictional in substance and tone. ''The Wine of Violence'' (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1981) tells of a pacifist utopia whose citizens sublimate their aggressive urges through autobiographical video fantasies. ''The Continent of Lies'' (Holt, Rinehart and Winston 1984) posits a futuristic entertainment medium called "dreambeans" or "cephapples": genetically engineered fruits that plunge consumers into scripted hallucinations. The author next attempted a more immediate, political, and experimental narrative. Although '' This Is the Way the World Ends'' (Henry Holt, 1986) was marketed initially as a mainstream novel, the science-fiction community embraced it, giving Morrow his first Nebula Award nomination. The plot is driven by "The Unadmitted," a ghostly race of potential humans who never got to be born, due to

nuclear holocaust A nuclear holocaust, also known as a nuclear apocalypse, nuclear annihilation, nuclear armageddon, or atomic holocaust, is a Futures studies, theoretical scenario where the mass detonation of nuclear weapons causes widespread destruction and radi ...

. Determined to use their earthly tenures wisely, the unadmitted put the surviving architects of Armageddon—including the novel's

everyman The everyman is a stock character of fiction. An ordinary and humble character, the everyman is generally a protagonist whose benign conduct fosters the audience's identification with them. Origin and history The term ''everyman'' was used ...

protagonist—on trial under the Nuremberg precedent. ''Only Begotten Daughter'' (William Morrow 1990) represented the author's initial exploration of the subject that would preoccupy him during his mature writing years: the enigma of religious faith. The protagonist is Julie Katz, whose existential problems include the fact that she is Jesus Christ's divine half-sister, reincarnated in contemporary Atlantic City. In ''The Last Witchfinder'' (William Morrow, 2006) the author dramatized the birth of the scientific worldview. Though much of the novel plays like straightforward, albeit comic, historical fiction, the author employs a peculiar postmodern conceit: the story is told by a sentient book, Isaac Newton's ''Principia Mathematica''. The narrative turns on Jennet Stearne, who makes it her life's mission to bring down the

Witchcraft Act 1603 The Witchcraft Acts were a historical succession of governing laws in England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, and the British colonies on penalties for the practice, or—in later years—rather for pretending to practice witchcraft. Witchcraft Act ...

. Morrow wrote his ninth full-length novel, an homage to Mary Shelley's ''

Frankenstein ''Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' is an 1818 Gothic novel written by English author Mary Shelley. ''Frankenstein'' tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a Sapience, sapient Frankenstein's monster, crea ...

'', under the title ''Prometheus Wept''. The protagonist, Mason Ambrose, is a failed philosophy student hired to implant a moral compass in a mysterious young woman, Londa Sabacthani, whose conscience is a

blank slate ''Tabula rasa'' (; Latin for "blank slate") is the idea of individuals being born empty of any built-in mental content, so that all knowledge comes from later perceptions or sensory experiences. Proponents typically form the extreme "nurture" ...

. The book was ultimately published as ''The Philosopher's Apprentice'' (William Morrow, 2008). Much as ''The Last Witchfinder'' celebrates the coming of the Enlightenment, Morrow's tenth novel, ''Galápagos Regained'' (St. Martin's Press, 2015), rejoices in the advent of evolutionary thought. The heroine is Charles Darwin's zookeeper, the fictional Chloe Bathurst, who will stop at nothing to win the Great God Contest: £10,000 to the first person who can prove, or disprove, the existence of God.

The Godhead Trilogy

In the 1990s Morrow devoted most of his writing energy to an ambitious project spun from the premise that

God In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...

has died, leaving behind a two-mile-long corpse. While each book in the Godhead Trilogy features a different protagonist and an independent plot, certain characters and motifs recur throughout the cycle, as does the Corpus Dei. In ''

Towing Jehovah ''Towing Jehovah'' is a 1994 fantasy novel by American writer James K. Morrow, published by Harcourt Brace.

'' (Harcourt Brace, 1994) a disgraced supertanker captain, Anthony Van Horne, is commissioned by the angel Raphael to tow the divine cadaver to its final resting place in the Arctic. As the voyage progresses, atheists and believers alike take pains to keep God's death a secret. ''Blameless in Abaddon'' (Harcourt Brace, 1996), a modern-dress version of the

Book of Job The Book of Job (), or simply Job, is a book found in the Ketuvim ("Writings") section of the Hebrew Bible and the first of the Poetic Books in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. The language of the Book of Job, combining post-Babylonia ...

, turns on the plight of Martin Candle, a small-town, small-time magistrate who, sorely afflicted with cancer, resolves to drag God before the World Court and prosecute him for his seeming indifference to human suffering. A character modeled on

C.S. Lewis CS, C-S, C.S., Cs, cs, or cs. may refer to: Job titles * Chief Secretary (Hong Kong) * Chief superintendent, a rank in the British and several other police forces * Company secretary, a senior position in a private sector company or public se ...

agrees to finance the elaborate proceeding, but only if he gets to make the case for the defense. ''The Eternal Footman'' (Harcourt Brace, 1999) begins with the last remnant of the Corpus Dei, God's immense skull, going into geosynchronous orbit above Times Square. This second moon causes a "plague of death awareness" to descend on humankind. Among the victims is a boy whose resourceful mother, Nora Burkhart, undertakes an odyssey from New England to Mexico in an effort to deliver the stricken child from his apparent fate.

Notable shorter fiction

Morrow's oeuvre includes three stand-alone science-fiction novellas, each reflecting the author's penchant for mixing dire situations with acerbic and absurdist humor. ''City of Truth'' (Random Century Group, UK, 1990) occurs in the world of Veritas, a dystopia of mandatory candor. To save his mortally ill son, the protagonist, Jack Sperry, must somehow transcend his Skinnerian conditioning and learn to tell lies. Set in the final days of World War Two, '' Shambling Towards Hiroshima'' (Tachyon, 2009) describes the U.S. Navy's attempt to leverage a Japanese surrender via a "biological weapon" that anticipates

Godzilla is a fictional monster, or ''kaiju'', that debuted in the eponymous 1954 film, directed and co-written by Ishirō Honda. The character has since become an international pop culture icon, appearing in various media: 33 Japanese films p ...

. An homage to early 1950s live television, ''The Madonna and the Starship'' (Tachyon, 2014) tells of a New York pulp writer who must convince two hyper-rationalist aliens that a weekly religious program is satiric in intent, for otherwise the invaders will annihilate its audience of two million devout viewers. Among his better known stories collected in ''Bible Stories for Adults'' (Harcourt Brace, 1996) are "Spelling God with the Wrong Blocks" (featuring Darwin-worshiping robots who believe they evolved pursuant to evolutionary principles), "Daughter Earth" (in which a Pennsylvania farmer's wife gives birth to a small planet), and "Arms and the Woman" (in which a canny Helen of Troy attempts to end "the war to make the world safe for war"). The author's second collection, ''The Cat's Pajamas and Other Stories'' (Tachyon, 2004) included "Auspicious Eggs" (set in a dystopian Boston where anti-abortion sentiment now encompasses "the rights of the unconceived"), "Martyrs of the Upshot Knothole" (dramatizing the possible connection between John Wayne's cancer and atomic-bomb tests), and "The Zombies of Montrose" (an entry in the author's cycle of one-act plays). A humorous political satire of the German Expressionistic classic silent film,

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari ''The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari'' () is a 1920 German silent horror film directed by Robert Wiene and written by Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer. The quintessential work of early German Expressionist cinema, it tells the story of an insane hypno ...

,
The Asylum of Dr. Caligari
' (Tachyon, 2017) follows a young painter, Francis Wyndham, and Ilona Wessels, a brilliant, semi-insane inmate, who conspire to thwart infamous asylum director Dr. Alessandro Caligari's evil moneymaking scheme (making and then selling the use of a sorcerous painting to incite soldiers into battlelust). Morrow's version of Caligari is a timely, acerbic meditation on the volatile interaction of commerce and politics, and how it can lead to dangerously dramatic scenarios on the world stage.

Anthologies and lesson plans

Several years after Morrow won a Nebula Award for Best Short Story, the Science Fiction Writers of America assigned him to edit three anthologies: '' Nebula Awards 26'' (Harcourt Brace 1992), ''

Nebula Awards 27 ''Nebula Awards 27'' is an anthology of science fiction short works edited by James Morrow, the second of three successive volumes under his editorship. It was first published in hardcover and trade paperback by Harcourt Brace in April 1993. Summ ...

'' (Harcourt Brace 1993), and ''

Nebula Awards 28 ''Nebula Awards 28'' is an anthology of award winning science fiction short works edited by James K. Morrow, James Morrow, the third of three successive volumes under his editorship. It was first published in hardcover and trade paperback by Harco ...

'' (Harcourt Brace, 1994). Throughout the first decade of the twenty-first century, James and Kathryn Morrow were regular guests at

Utopiales Utopiales is an annual international science fiction festival held in Nantes, France, probably the largest European event for the field. It covers science fiction and fantasy literature, film, fine arts, comics, role-playing games, and animation ...

, a literary festival held annually in Nantes. One outcome of their interaction with the international SF community was ''The SFWA European Hall of Fame'' (Tor Books, 2007), an anthology of sixteen stories carefully translated into English from thirteen Continental languages, each such rendering the result of a three-way internet conversation among the author, the translator, and the Morrows. With the release of Peter Jackson's movie adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy novel ''The Lord of the Rings'', Houghton Mifflin hired both James Morrow (on the strength of his published instructional materials) and Kathryn Morrow (given her extensive knowledge of Tolkien's oeuvre) to write a book-length curriculum for middle-school and high-school teachers wishing to bring ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings'' into their classrooms. The resulting resource, ''Tolkien's Middle Earth: Lesson Plans for Secondary School Educators'' (Houghton Mifflin, 2006), was posted on the publisher's website.

Honors and awards

* CINE Golden Eagle for 16 mm short film, ''Children of the Morning'' (1969), filmed at the Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. * ''A Political Cartoon'' (1974), a 16 mm short film by Joe Adamson, James Morrow, and David Stone, was nominated for a Gold Hugo for Best Short Film at the Chicago International Film Festival, and won the Francis Scott Key Award at the Baltimore Film Festival, the Judge's Prize at the Santa Barbara Film Festival, the Jury's Prize at the Columbus Film Festival, and the Audience Prize at the Midwest Film Festival. The Los Angeles Free Pass rated the short "film poetry of the highest order". *

Nebula Award for Best Short Story The Nebula Award for Best Short Story is a literary award assigned each year by Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) for science fiction or fantasy short stories. A work of fiction is defined by the organization as a short sto ...

, "Bible Stories for Adults, No. 17: The Deluge" (1988). *

World Fantasy Award The World Fantasy Awards are a set of awards given each year for the best fantasy fiction published during the previous calendar year. Organized and overseen by the World Fantasy Convention, the awards are given each year at the eponymous ann ...

for Best Novel, ''Only Begotten Daughter'' (1991). *

Nebula Award for Best Novella The Nebula Award for Best Novella is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) for science fiction or fantasy novellas. A work of fiction is defined by the organization as a novella if it is between 17,500 and 4 ...

, ''City of Truth'' (1992). *

World Fantasy Award—Novel The World Fantasy Awards are given each year by the World Fantasy Convention for the best fantasy fiction published in English during the previous calendar year. The awards have been described by book critics such as ''The Guardian'' as a "presti ...

, ''Towing Jehovah'' (1995). *

Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire The (GPI, 'grand prize of the Imaginary'), until 1992 the , is a French literary award for speculative fiction, established in 1972 by the writer Jean-Pierre Fontana as part of the science fiction convention of Clermont-Ferrand. Initially pur ...

for Best Novel, ''Towing Jehovah'' (1995). * The Volume 5, Number 12 issue of ''Paradoxa: Studies in World Literary Genres'' (1999) was devoted entirely to James Morrow's novels and short stories. * Guest of Honor at Confluence, Mars, Pennsylvania, 2000. * Guest of Honor at ConQuest 32, Kansas City, Kansas, 2001 * Inducted into Abington Senior High School Hall of Fame, 2002. * Prix Utopia for Lifetime Achievement in Science Fiction (2005) * Guest of Honor at Readercon 17, Burlington, Massachusetts, 2006. *

Theodore Sturgeon Award The Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award is an annual literary award presented by the Theodore Sturgeon Literary Trust and the Center for the Study of Science Fiction at the University of Kansas to the author of the best short science fiction story ...

for Best Short Fiction, ''Shambling Towards Hiroshima'' (2010). * Guest of Honor at ArmadilloCon 37, Austin, Texas, July 2015

Bibliography

Novels

* ''The Wine of Violence'' (1981) – * ''The Continent of Lies'' (1984) – * ''This Is the Way the World Ends'' (Henry Holt, 1986) – * ''

'' (1990) – * '' The Last Witchfinder'' (2006) – * ''The Philosopher's Apprentice'' (2008) – * ''Galápagos Regained'' (2015) – * ''The Asylum of Dr. Caligari'' (2017) –

Godhead trilogy

* ''

Towing Jehovah ''Towing Jehovah'' is a 1994 fantasy novel by American writer James K. Morrow, published by Harcourt Brace.

'' (1994) – * ''Blameless in Abaddon'' (1996) – * ''The Eternal Footman'' (1999) –

Chapbook format

* ''The Adventures of Smoke Bailey'' (1983) * ''City of Truth'' (1991) – * '' Shambling Towards Hiroshima'' (2009) * ''The Madonna and the Starship'' (2014) – * ''Bigfoot and the Bodhisattva'' (2018) –

Collections

* ''Swatting at the Cosmos'' (1990) – ** ''Introduction: Swatting at the Cosmos'', essay ** "The Assemblage of Kristin" (1984), short story ** "Bible Stories for Adults, No. 17: The Deluge" (1988), short story ** "The Eye That Never Blinks" (1988), short story ** "Bible Stories for Adults, No. 20: The Tower" (1990), short story ** "The Confessions of Ebenezer Scrooge" (1989), short story ** "Bible Stories for Adults, No. 31: The Covenant (1989), short story ** "Spelling God with the Wrong Blocks" (1987), short story * ''Bible Stories for Adults'' (1996) – ** ''Preface (Bible Stories for Adults)'', essay ** "Bible Stories for Adults, No. 17: The Deluge" (1988), short story ** "Daughter Earth" (1991), short story ** "Known But to God and Wilbur Hines" (1991), short story ** "Bible Stories for Adults, No. 20: The Tower" (1990), short story ** "Spelling God with the Wrong Blocks" (1987), short story ** "The Assemblage of Kristin" (1984), short story ** "Bible Stories for Adults, No. 31: The Covenant" (1989), short story ** "Abe Lincoln in McDonald's" (1989), short story ** "The Confessions of Ebenezer Scrooge" (1989), short story ** "Bible Stories for Adults No. 46: The Soap Opera" (1994), short fiction ** "Diary of a Mad Deity" (1988), novelette ** "Arms and the Woman" (1991), novelette * ''The Cat's Pajamas and Other Stories'' (2004) – ** "The War of the Worldviews" (2002), short story ** ''Introduction: Good Morrow to Our Waking Souls'', essay by Terry Bisson ** "The Wisdom of the Skin" (2002), short story ** "Martyrs of the Upshot Knothole" (2004), short story ** "Come Back, Dr. Sarcophagus", short story ** "The Fate of Nations" (2003), short story ** "The Eye That Never Blinks" (1988), short story ** "Director's Cut" (1994), short story ** "Auspicious Eggs" (2000), novelette ** " Apologue" (2001), short story ** "Fucking Justice", short story ** "Isabella of Castile Answers Her Mail" (1992), short story ** "The Zombies of Montrose", short story ** "The Cat's Pajamas" (2001), novelette * ''Reality by Other Means: The Best Short Fiction of James Morrow'' (2015) –

Short fiction

;

References

External links

*
Author's blog, ''The Passionate Rationalist''
at

LiveJournal LiveJournal (), stylised as LiVEJOURNAL, is a Russian-owned social networking service where users can keep a blog, journal, or diary. American programmer Brad Fitzpatrick started LiveJournal on April 15, 1999, as a way of keeping his high school ...

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Morrow, James K. 1947 births Living people 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American novelists 20th-century American short story writers 21st-century American male writers 21st-century American novelists 21st-century American short story writers American atheists American male novelists American male short story writers American science fiction writers Writers about religion and science Harvard Graduate School of Education alumni The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction people Nebula Award winners Novelists from Pennsylvania People from State College, Pennsylvania American science fiction editors University of Pennsylvania alumni World Fantasy Award–winning writers Writers from Philadelphia