John M. Ford

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John Milo "Mike" Ford (April 10, 1957 – September 25, 2006) was an American science fiction and fantasy writer, game designer, and poet. Ford wrote poems, often in both complicated and blank verse; he also wrote pastiches and parodies of many other writers and styles.

He would appear as "Ask Dr. Mike" at Minicon and other science fiction conventions, giving amusing responses to scientific and other questions in a lab coat before a whiteboard.

Life

Ford was born in East Chicago, Indiana, and raised in Whiting, Indiana. He attended Indiana University Bloomington in the mid-1970s, where he was active in the IU science fiction club and Society for Creative Anachronism (using the name Miles Atherton de Grey); while there, he wrote his first short story "This, Too, We Reconcile" in the May 1976 Analog.

Ford left IU and moved to New York to work on Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, where he published poetry, fiction, essays, and game reviews starting in mid-1978. Despite the fact that his last non-fiction appeared in September 1981, he was the tenth most popular contributor for the 1977-2002 period. Around 1990, he moved to Minneapolis. In addition to writing, he served as a hospital orderly, computer consultant, slush pile reader, and copy editor.

Since childhood, Ford suffered with diabetes and kidney disease, which necessitated dialysis, and, in 2000, a kidney transplant, which greatly improved his quality of life. Elise Matthesen, his partner since the mid-1990s, was discovered dead in his Minneapolis home from natural causes on September 25, 2006. He was a founding member of the Minneapolis Public Library, which established a John M. Ford Book Endowment after his death, with the proceeds used as interest-generating funds for the annual purchase of new books.

Source

Awards

• 2005 Origins Award for Role-Playing Game Supplement of the Year – GURPS Infinite Worlds 4th Edition
• 1998 Minnesota Book Award for Fantasy & Science Fiction
• 1993 Philip K. Dick Award – Growing Up Weightless
• 1991 Origins Award for Best Roleplaying Supplement – GURPS Time Travel
• 1989 World Fantasy Award for Best Short Fiction – "Winter Solstice, Camelot Station" (in Invitation to Camelot, edited by Parke Godwin)
• 1989 Rhysling Award for Long Poem – also "Winter Solstice, Camelot Station"
• 1985 Origins Award for Best Roleplaying Supplement – The Yellow Clearance Black Box Blues
• 1984 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel – The Dragon Waiting