Following an extended period of depression after the death in 2005 of his life-partner, Charles Naylor, Disch stopped writing almost entirely, except for poetry and blog entries, although he did produce two novellas.

The family moved in 1953 to St. Paul in Minnesota, rejoining both pairs of grandparents, where Disch attended both public and Catholic schools.

[4] In the Saint Paul public schools, Disch discovered his long-term loves of science fiction, drama, and poetry.

Saving enough to move to New York City at the age of 17,[4] he found a Manhattan apartment and began to cast his energies in many directions.

A brief flirtation with architecture led him to apply to Cooper Union, where he was told he got the highest score ever on their entrance exam, but he dropped out after a few weeks.

[4][8] Having begun his literary career, he did not return to NYU but rather took another series of odd jobs such as bank teller, mortuary assistant, and copy editor —all of which served to fuel what he referred to as his night-time "writing habit".

Over the next few years he wrote more science fiction stories but also branched out into poetry; his first published poem, "Echo and Narcissus", appeared in the Minnesota Review's Summer 1964 issue.

[10] Much of his early science fiction was published in English author Michael Moorcock's New Wave magazine, New Worlds, including his sixth novel Camp Concentration in two installments.

In spite of this, he remained a New Yorker for the last twenty years of his life, keeping a long-time New York residence overlooking Union Square.

[13] However, in his final novel, The Word of God, Disch got his revenge with a story in which Dick is in Hell, unable to write because of writer's block.

Disch also referred to Dick in a blog post stating "May he rot in hell, and may his royalties corrupt his heirs to the seventh generation.

"[14] Disch shared his Manhattan apartment and a house in Barryville, New York, with his partner of three decades, poet and fiction writer Charles Naylor.

[15] After Naylor's death in 2005, Disch had to abandon the house, as well as fight attempts to evict him from his rent controlled apartment, and he became steadily more depressed.

[14] His final published work, the posthumous story collection The Wall of America, contains speculative fiction from the last half of Disch's career.

The game, based on technology pioneered by Cognetics' Charles Kreitzberg, was produced by Don Daglow and programmed by Kevin Bentley.

It showcased Disch's vivid writing, a stark contrast to other game-programmer-written text adventures of the time, and his passion for the energy of the city of New York.

Although the text adventure format was dying by the time Amnesia was released and it enjoyed limited success, the game pioneered ideas that would later become popular in game design by modeling the entire Manhattan street map south of 110th St. and allowing the player to visit any street corner in that part of the city in their quest to advance the story.

Ben-Hur not only told the story of the famous Biblical novel but delved into the life and times of its author, General Lew Wallace.

Disch proffers the theory that Wallace penned Ben-Hur, in part, to assuage his guilt over his role in the execution of Mary Surratt.

The Cardinal Detoxes had a simple conceit: a Catholic bishop has committed vehicular homicide while driving intoxicated and is imprisoned in a monastic "drying tank" where he is sure he is being bugged by the higher-ups.

The play was performed at RAPP, located in the former Most Holy Redeemer School, and drew a cease and desist order from the Catholic Archdiocese of New York.

An article written by The New York Times' Mervyn Rothstein got picked up around the world on the AP wire and the play became one of the most notable censorship controversies of the 1990s.

After the American Civil Liberties Union declined to take the case, Disch and RAPP were represented by William Kunstler and Ron Kuby, and the Archdiocese lost in court.

In 1985, his short story "The Squirrel Cage", included in his book Fun With Your New Head, was adapted for the stage by Robin Willoughby of Buffalo, New York.