Tribute to Michael Steinberg (1940-2019)
The news of Mike Steinberg's passing in December was a shock to us all. I'd known Mike since my years at Mid-American Review, when I invited him to read at our annual Winter Wheat Festival of Writing and was floored when he said yes. As I recall, there were some logistics glitches, but it didn't dampen our emerging friendship. Over the years, we'd meet up at AWP, trade emails, continue our conversations about nonfiction as if time and distance didn't exist, and so in 2014, when I wanted to start a new nonfiction scholarly journal, he was one of the first I asked to be one of our Advisory Editors. He agreed so quickly and became one of Assay's greatest champions, a trusted colleague in the genre, and a voice of wisdom when I needed advice. Assay as a journal, and I, personally, feel his loss deeply.
We've lost too many to cancer in the last few years, particularly in the nonfiction community. I've gathered a few voices here to pay tribute to our friend and colleague, ruminating on his contributions to the nonfiction genre, his work as the founding editor of Fourth Genre, and his singular voice as a writer. Our world is dimmer for his loss. Karen Babine, editor |
Notes on Mike Steinberg
Jessica Handler
6.2
When Mike Steinberg died in December, the news rippled through my Facebook feed, my text messages, my emails. This cannot, I said, be true. His eyesight was poor, getting worse, but how does that kill a man? When Mike died, I was under the time crunch of my end-of-semester grading, and I wanted so much to write about how his mentorship made me a writer, but grades were due, and everything else that mattered had to wait. I believe Mike would have appreciated the dilemma. More to the point, though, I couldn’t write about him until I could find a reprieve from being stunned by Mike’s death. Also a dilemma Mike would have appreciated. What I want to tell you is that Mike Steinberg’s advocacy for my ability and intent made me a writer, and if you’re a nonfiction writer, he probably did the same for you. Click here to continue reading.
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Remembering Mike Steinberg: On the Diamond and at the Desk
Joe Mackall
6.2
No more than a month or so after I’d learned my friend Mike Steinberg had died, I started, as I often do in the dark of an Ohio winter, feeling a hot urge for baseball. I picked up David Halberstam’s book Teammates: A Portrait of a Friendship about four old baseball friends and a journey two of them embarked on to say goodbye to the first of them destined to die. Although I have not a scintilla of regard for the Boston Red Sox, I do love the history of baseball, so I went along for the ride as Dom DiMaggio and Johnny Pesky drove 1,300 miles to visit their dying teammate and friend, the great Ted Williams. Just a few pages into the book, I wanted nothing more than to call Mike. Click here to continue reading.
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Making Space
Laura Julier
6.2
Into this odd institutional configuration I arrived and was welcomed by Mike Steinberg, the only person among my new colleagues who could talk to me about the teaching of writing writ large, across genres, audiences, and purposes. He spoke with me of scholars, writers, and teachers across the country that we knew in common, and the look in his eyes was intense and hungry. Mike was passionate about powerful writing. He tried to create a community of writers and writing teacher-scholars amidst lots of institutional politics without playing any of the games. He wasn’t interested in making a mark in the profession or at the university; he wasn’t lured into thinking he could make a change in the institutional structures or the minds of his long-time colleagues. He did work hard at creating community and doing his writing. Click here to continue reading.
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