Lawrence Watt-Evans (born 1954) is one of thepseudonyms of Americanscience fiction andfantasy authorLawrence Watt Evans (another pseudonym, used primarily for science fiction, isNathan Archer).

Born inArlington, Massachusetts, as the fourth of six children, he made his first attempts at professional writing when he was eight.

After graduating fromBedford High School inBedford, Massachusetts, he attendedPrinceton University but left without a degree. By the rules of Princeton, he could not reapply for a year, during which he began to seriously try to sell his writing, but he sold nothing significant untilThe Lure of the Basilisk in 1979 (published 1980); he began then writing full-time. Despite having sold a short story and several articles under his real name, he initially submitted his first novel under a pseudonym. It was the editor of that novel,Lester del Rey, who first demanded for him to use his real name, and del Rey added the hyphen to create the name Lawrence Watt-Evans. Evans had insisted on including his middle name to avoid confusion with a contemporary nonfiction writer, also namedLawrence Evans, and del Rey had then added the hyphen "to make it more distinctive".

Watt-Evans was president of theHorror Writers Association from 1994 to 1996, and has also served as Eastern Regional Director and treasurer ofScience Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. From 1995 to 1997, he was half of a partnership known asMalicious Press (with screenwriterTerry Rossio), which publishedDeathrealm magazine, edited by Stephen Mark Rainey and he was the managing editor of thewebzineHelix SF for its entire run of ten quarterly issues.

In April 2005, Watt-Evans announced that the first draft of his latest Ethshar novel,The Spriggan Mirror, would be made available online as aserial, using a modified version of theStreet Performer Protocol. The draft has since been finished and was previously available in its entirety on one of Watt-Evans' websites.^[1] However, a revised version has now been published commercially in both electronic and paper editions, so the free version has been removed. He since completed several online serials, all using that same method:The Vondish Ambassador in 2007,Realms of Light started November 2008 (his only non-Ethshar serial, a sequel toNightside City),The Final Calling started in June 2010 (later published asThe Unwelcome Warlock). In April–July 2012 he did a 5th serial,The Sorcerer's Widow.

In June 2013 Watt-Evans began a crowd-funding campaign for his unpublishedscience fiction novelVika's Avenger, a story unrelated to his previous works, and in July he started a sixth Ethshar serial,Ishta's Companion. In 2014 he announced that, as the response to the campaign forIshta's Companion had been disappointing, he would stop writing online serials. The book was published asRelics of War.^[2]

• Official website
• The Ethshar Home Page
• Lawrence Watt-Evans at theInternet Speculative Fiction Database
• Lawrence Watt-Evans papers, 1974-2018 at theUniversity of Maryland, Baltimore County