Remembering Mike Resnick

I first met Mike Resnick at the Writers of the Future workshop week the year I won. I didn't know who he was. I think he might have given a talk to the new writers as several of the judges do, but I don't remember a thing. I'd never heard of him before (or least I thought I hadn't) so for whatever reason, his presence just didn't register with me.

My first memory of Mike, really, was after I'd won the gold award (the grand prize) and was ferried off to do tons of autographing as the annual winners do. Mike came up to me when I had a break (though in retrospect I don't know how a break even existed) and said that he didn't want my autograph but did want to congratulate me. At some point, it finally sunk in that he was one of the judges.

When I got home from the event, I set up Facebook for the first time and friended everyone I'd met as well as all the judges, including Mike. I thanked him for judging the contest and picking my story as the grand prize winner (I knew he'd been on the final judging panel), and he wrote back encouraging me to keep writing. He said something that one else ever had, that it would be a loss for the field if I did not continue.

I still do not think I write at the level that Mike thought I could, but he always encouraged me and said I was free to e-mail him whenever I wanted. I tried not to bother him too often, but he always responded when I did, whether it was about which conventions to go to, how to behave at a convention, or where I should send a story.

Mike mentored a lot of writers. You'd know if you were one of Mike's "writer children" because he'd call you that and invite you the breakfasts he'd have for the writer kids at Worldcon. I only got to attend one, but it was surprising to see how many writer siblings I had, across such a range of ages and experience levels.

He had a lot of love for the history of the field, and I'd occasionally disappoint him by not reading some classic he'd enjoyed. To me, the field formed during my childhood, so there are few books I've read from before I was born, and I tend to be skeptical about how well they've aged. I think he wished we could have talked about the same authors, but when I refused to read them, he'd roll his eyes like a put-upon father and that would be the end of it.

At some point I discovered, years after I met him, that the first time I'd read any of Mike's work was actually back in high school. It's just that I hadn't known him at the time, so he was just another name in an anthology.

Mike was talking to a group of novice writers about themed anthologies, telling them about how it's good to have an unusual take on the theme, because it gives the editor something different to fill the volume with. As an example, he talked about a military science fiction anthology he submitted a story to. Obviously there are certain expectations in a military sf story; generally combat, daring missions, etc. So Mike sent in an off-kilter story about the military wanting to set up a base where they weren't wanted from the POV of the person trying to get rid of them. It was a comedy.

And this is how Mike inadvertently taught me a different lesson.

On hearing the name of the anthology series and the details of the story, I realized I'd read that story in high school and it was my least favorite in the volume, precisely because I was expecting some soldier or military-affiliated protagonists, and I didn't like the jerk who was trying to get the soldiers to piss off while they're busy trying to save the galaxy.

So being different is good, but don't be so different that the reader doesn't get what they signed up for.

And I know Mike was not much of a military sf reader or writer, which is likely why he took that tack in the first place.

But Mike's more serious works often had a lot of heart. You could feel the emotion behind his characters and their decisions. And whenever he decided to put on an editor's hat, I noticed that heart was what he looked for the most.

It's something I started doing whenever I struggled with a draft. What is the emotional heart of the story? What do I want the reader to feel when they get to the end?

This started to inform my writing, and is probably the biggest lesson I've taken away from him.

Though I didn't know the full extent of Mike's situation until his daughter Laura's post on his GoFundMe page, I'd known from his sporadic posting on Facebook that he'd been struggling with health issues for the past year, and even before then he'd had some bouts of illness due to his age. But the fact he lived long enough to deal with the symptoms of advanced age is a blessing itself.

I know he helped and encouraged a lot of people, and he didn't stop doing that throughout his career. I once asked him why he spent so much time doing this, and he told me that everyone who helped him get started was now either well off or dead, so he chose to pay it forward.

I last saw Mike two years ago, when he told me that "Living Rooms" was still the best story he'd seen through the Writers of the Future contest. The story has been a bit of an albatross for me as it continues to be one of my most read works, as if I haven't done anything in the ten years since I won the contest. Sometimes, I wished that Mike would have liked one of my later stories better, and he'd bought multiple from me, but still... Maybe it's because that was the story that introduced me to him, and him to me.