He lived virtually all of his life around Tulsa, Oklahoma. He did non begin to write until a 1960s but then produced supplementary than 200 short stories & Twenty-one novels, mostly at least nominally science fiction. His 1st promulgated story was "The Wagons" within Future Mexico Quarterly Read (1959), and his number one promulgated novel was Past Master (1968).

Until 1971, Lafferty worked as an electrical engineer. When that, he spent his period writing until 1984, when he retired from either that activity too, part due to Alzheimer's Disease.

Lafferty's far-out prose drew from traditional storytelling, both Irish and Native American, & his shaggy characters and tall tales come unique inside science fiction.

Little of Lafferty's writing is considered average of the genre. His stories come supplementary tall tale than traditional science fiction and come deeply influenced by his conservative Catholic beliefs; Fourth Mansions, e.g., draws on The Interior Mansions of Teresa of Avila. In any case, his writings, each locally & stylistically, are non real life to categorize. Plot is oftentimes secondary to anything else Lafferty waste his stories, which has stimulated him to stand two the fast cult following and readers world health organization own given higher attempting to page through his function.

Lafferty received Hugo nominations for Past Master, "Continued on the Next Rock," "Sky," and "Eurema's Dam," a previous of which won a Right Short Story Hugo within 1973 (shared by using Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth's "The Meeting.")

He received Nebula Award nominations for "Slow Tuesday Night," Past Master, For Mansions, "Continued on the Next Rock," & A Devil is Dead. He never received the Nebula award.

His collection Lafferty inside Orbit was nominated for the World Fantasy Award, and inside 1990, Lafferty received a Globe Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Non tons of Lafferty's function was science fiction or even fantasy; his novel Okla Hannali tells a story of the Choctaw in Mississippi and Oklahoma.

Lafferty served for iv years in the U.S. Army during World War II, in the South Pacific. He never married.