–Gary K. Wolfe
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Author JAY LAKE, 49, died June 1, 2014 after a long and valiant fight with cancer.
Lake began to write seriously in 2000, when he joined the Wordos writing group. First story ‘‘The Courtesy of Guests’’ appeared in September 2001, and he soon became one of the most prolific writers in the field, publishing over 300 stories in his too-short career. Notable stories include Hugo nominee ‘‘Into the Gardens of Sweet Night’’ (2003), Hugo and Nebula Award finalist ‘‘The Stars Do Not Lie’’ (2012), Sturgeon Memorial Award finalist ‘‘The Weight of History, the Lightness of the Future’’ (2012), and novellas The Baby Killers (2009), The Specific Gravity of Grief (2010), and Love in the Time of Metal and Flesh (2013).
His stories have been collected in Greetings from Lake Wu (2003, illustrated by Frank Wu), Green Grow the Rushes-Oh (2003), American Sorrows (2004), Dogs in the Moonlight (2004), The River Knows Its Own (2007), The Sky That Wraps (2010), and forthcoming The Last Plane to Heaven. Novella collection METAtropolis: The Wings We Dare Aspire, co-written with Ken Scholes, was just released. On the strength of his stories, he won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2004.
First novel Rocket Science appeared in 2005. Other books include the ‘‘New Weird’’ City Imperishable sequence: Trial of Flowers (2006) and Madness of Flowers (2009); the Mainspring series, with Sidewise Award nominee and Campbell Memorial Award finalist Mainspring (2007), Escapement (2008), and Pinion (2010); the Green series: Green (2009), Endurance (2011), and Kalimpura (2013); and short novel Death of a Starship (2009). Fantasy novel Our Lady of the Islands, co-written with Lake’s frequent collaborator Shannon Page, is forthcoming.
Lake’s last major project was his ambitious Sunspin space opera sequence, with many stories set in the universe published and work done on related novels, beginning with Calamity of So Long a Life.
Lake was also an accomplished anthologist. He co-edited the first six volumes of the Polyphony series with Deborah Layne (2002-2006), All-Star Zeppelin Adventure Stories (2004, with David Moles), TEL: Stories (2005), Spicy Slipstream Stories (2008, with Nick Mamatas), The Exquisite Corpuscle (2008, with Frank Wu), Other Earths (2009, with Nick Gevers), and Footprints (2009, with Eric T. Reynolds). Lake was a World Fantasy Award finalist in 2004 and 2005 for editing Polyphony.
Jay Lake, Bronwyn Lake (2013)
Joseph Edward Lake, Jr. was born June 6, 1964 in Taiwan. His father was a foreign service officer, and Lake grew up in Taiwan and Nigeria. He attended high school at the Choate Rosemary Hall boarding school in Connecticut, graduated from the University of Texas in 1986, lived in Austin until 2000, and then relocated to Portland OR. He worked in advertising and for dot-coms but spent most of his career doing marketing for a telecommunications company. He married Susan Mendes in 1993 (they separated in 2004), and they adopted their daughter Bronwyn in 1998.
Lake was a frequent guest and attendee at conventions, known and widely loved for his humor and larger-than-life personality. He and his friend Ken Scholes were joint Toastmasters of the 2011 Worldcon in Reno NV.
In 2008, Lake was diagnosed with colon cancer. Though that mass was successfully removed, he later developed tumors in his lung and liver, which led to more surgeries and rounds of chemotherapy over the years. He had periods of better health, but the cancer inevitably returned. Lake acquired new fame as an outspoken cancer survivor and blogger, discussing the details of his illness and his efforts to navigate the health care industry with frankness and, often, humor. He even hosted his own ‘‘pre-mortem wake,’’ called ‘‘JayWake,’’ in 2013. Lake and his cancer battle were the subject of a documentary film, Lakeside – A Year with Jay Lake, which was screened at Worldcon in 2013 and is scheduled for release later this year.
Lake held a fundraiser to have his entire genome sequenced, both in hopes of finding information that might aid his doctors in treatment, and to add to the body of scientific knowledge about cancer. He later released his genome data free and open source, for any researcher to download. After releasing the data in December 2013 he wrote, ‘‘For my own part, cancer will claim my life soon enough. Releasing my Whole Genome Sequence to the world is one small way I can fight back against the disease. Not directly, of course, but as a way of helping students and researchers around the world become smarter about human health and life in general.’’ He entered hospice care in May 2014.
Lake is survived by his partner Lisa Costello and his daughter.
JAY by Lisa Costello
Jay Lake & Lisa Costello (2013)
I met Jay two years ago, on his birthday in 2012. I got to know him originally as a fangirl, having read Mainspring and the books that followed it in the trilogy. But I knew him better as a man than I did as a writer. He produced so many words that I never did more than scratch the surface of his bibliography. I vividly remember the sound of his typing as he was writing, so fast and furious it sounded like popcorn popping. The joy his writing brought him was immense. But the man I experienced was the kindest, most loving, compassionate, generous, and joyous person I have ever known. I have never known anyone who cared more about the people around him, and I have never known anyone who was so deeply loved by so many people. As he said himself many times, if love could cure cancer, he would have been the healthiest man alive. He was an amazing partner and an amazing father. I have never known a heart as big as his. The hole he leaves in our lives is enormous, which just reflects the enormity of his personality. When I was writing seriously back in the ’90s, I would have given anything to have made it to the point where I could see my name in Locus. That I achieved that milestone because of Jay seems appropriate somehow. I loved him deeply, and miss him terribly.
–Lisa Costello
APPRECIATION FOR JAY LAKE by Ken Scholes
Douglas Adams said, ‘‘There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.’’
I’m convinced that someone, somewhere must’ve discovered exactly what the universe is for and why it’s here because the idea of Jay Lake no longer walking among us is more bizarre and inexplicable that I can fully articulate. The weight of it breaks my big Trailer Boy heart.
I met Jay when we were both at the very front end of our writing careers. He was reviewing magazines for Tangent Online back in 2001 and said some pretty wonderful things about one my earliest sales, ‘‘Edward Bear and the Very Long Walk’’. It was the first rave review of my fiction and I thanked him for it. Later, Patrick Swenson introduced us in a line at Roasters (a restaurant) during Norwescon. We were instant friends and our love of story and the delight with which we played in our sandboxes of words bonded us quickly. When I moved south, we started with monthly lunches, then moved quickly to weekly. Time spent with Jay, in person or in chat or by phone, was Miracle Gro for the garden that stories come from. I think about a third of my short stories and certainly all of my novels are a product of his muse (Fred) egging my muse (Leroy) on in Jackass-style literary antics. When he wasn’t daring me to write just because I’m a writer, he was inviting me to play in the anthologies he edited. And my series, The Psalms of Isaak, would be a quiet batch of four short stories if he hadn’t dared me to write Lamentation and then fallen in love with that story and declared that love so vehemently and publicly. I would have a quiet, largely unnoticed short story career if he hadn’t been there to push, cajole, and dare me to grow beyond my writerly insecurities. I wasn’t the only one. Jay’s Pay It Forward muscle was strong and he gave himself freely to other writers, able to intuitively understand what they were doing well and what was getting in their way.
Ken Scholes and Jay Lake lick a window
Beyond the helping hand he offered, Jay was just simply full of life,
full of love, and full of a madcap pursuit of fun. Not just full of life, he was larger than life and when he loved a person, he enlarged their lives as well. As I write this, my mind is flooded with memories of our misadventures. A road trip to San Francisco, window-licking in New York City, our write-off at Borderlands where he was careful to use as many words possible in his contribution to those stories to keep me blushing and off balance during our public reading. Thousands of tater tots and escalating bar con antics that would raise the raunch stakes with each back and forth. His raucous laughter as I spewed the stinkiest, nastiest cheese (that he of course loved) out of my mouth in utter disgust. ‘‘It tastes like butter,’’ he said. ‘‘Drop the ‘er’ and it’s a closer match,’’ I replied. Him all deadpan: ‘‘I don’t want to know how you know that.’’ Jay in the waiting room, waiting for me while I sat with my mother after taking her off life support. Jay holding my brand new little people the day that they were born. And then, in the midst of the cancer, watching him share that experience with the world – an act of courage and love that inspired me to do the same with my own health challenges – facing his coming death with authenticity, chronicling it as he moved down that path. Sitting on the floor beside his recliner, holding his hand, a few days before he died, and hearing his chuckle when I suggested that all this internet love for him should be harnessed into a cult.
Bertrand Russell said, ‘‘To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.’’ Jay lived and loved fearlessly and burned brightly during his time with us. The legacy he leaves – all of those his big heart and big brain and big vocabulary touched and changed – was obvious in all of the tributes and pictures that flooded the web in his last week. I’ve always believed that the best, truest evidence of a well-lived life is measured in the love given and received.
Bizarre and inexplicable, my friend, that you are not here. And yet, you are very much here, snorting in the corner of the Den of Ken and daring me to write more, love more, fear less. But oh, I miss you, pal.
–Ken Scholes
JAY LAKE by Shannon Page
Jay Lake died last month.
I got the news, as many of you did, when I woke up on June 1st.
It wasn’t a surprise, of course. The timing perhaps – but even for that, there had been warning. His last-ditch treatment had failed. He’d entered hospice. He’d had cancer since the day I met him, six years ago. This day was always coming.
I met him at a small writing retreat in the wilds of Washington’s rainforest-coast. I had been reading his blog for nearly a year; I’d watched his struggle with the first manifestation of his cancer. I’d watched him write a book in a little over a month (Green), and felt impressed and envious. Of course I’ve written books in a month, for NaNoWriMo, but I didn’t sell them to Tor a few weeks later.
The envy went away as soon as I met him; the ‘‘impressed’’ never did. He was one of the smartest people I’ve ever met, and had one of the biggest hearts. There has been a flood of testimonials all over Twitter and Facebook and LiveJournal about what a generous, supportive, welcoming presence he was to people entering the field. It’s true. He welcomed me in, and mentored me, and introduced me to most of the writers, editors, and publishers I know to this day.
Of course there was more. Of course he wanted to lure me into his bed – he was famous for that, and unapologetic about it. But the generosity and the welcome was for everyone – even the rare individuals he didn’t want to sleep with.
Jay Lake, Shannon Page (2010)
I hope this doesn’t sound too flip. I’ve been ‘‘writing’’ this piece for weeks in my head. I’m sure I’ll get it wrong. I imagine that’s all right.
Jay believed in fierce honesty and openness, about everything.
Jay loved life. He didn’t even make it to age fifty – his birthday was June 6th. But he grabbed as much of life as he could, in the short time he had. One of my favorite photos shows him grimacing after eating some ‘‘chum candy’’ he’d been given. He tasted everything, no matter how weird. He didn’t take baby steps, he ‘‘ran screaming into the fire,’’ as he told me more than once. Sometimes I disagreed with him. I found him reckless. He made decisions I wouldn’t have made. But it was HIS life, and he lived it to the fullest. He lived it on his terms, while still being caring, loving, sensitive.
It was an impressive balancing act. It didn’t always work. I’ve spent a lot of time talking to a number of his many ex-girlfriends. We form a kind of club – exasperated, sympathetic, still caring. Surprised and shocked and deeply saddened; not quite believing he’s really gone. Still carrying love in our hearts for him.
It ended badly, between him and me. I’m not going to write about that. It’s private. But we’d gotten past the worst of it, and were exploring being friends again. We’d had lunch a few times, recently, and talked about the sequel to Our Lady of the Islands.
A huge thing we had together was our collaborative writing. I’d only published a few short stories before I met him. We wrote a ton of stories together, which was a total delight. Then we wrote a novel, which was to be the first of many. Except it’ll be the only one. I’m editing it now, for publication in October. I’m so, so sorry he won’t be able to read the final version.
His voice has been with me through this process. I’ve been rereading Green, Endurance, and Kalimpura, to make sure I get the world right – or at least not screw it up too badly.
There is so much to say. Too much. I wouldn’t be where I am – literally and metaphorically – if I hadn’t met Jay. He’s the reason I moved to Portland. He helped me through an enormous – and painful, and necessary – life transition. He gave a big boost to my writing career. He introduced me to my first proofreading client. He introduced me to my fiancé, Mark, and encouraged our romance.
Goodbye, Jay. You are loved, and you are missed. My thoughts are with your family, your partner, and all your many, many, many friends all over the world.
–Shannon Page
JAY LAKE by Beth Meacham
Many people will tell you how much fun Jay Lake was to be around, and what a good writer he was, and how much we’ve lost in his untimely death. I want to tell you what an incredibly dedicated and hardworking writer he was. He wrote easily, fluidly, the words pouring out of his brain and fingertips. But they weren’t always the right words, though his raw first draft was usually pretty good. He worked those drafts over; he analyzed, he revised, he figured out how to make the words work for him. He worked hard at his craft. Jay was easy to work with. He was responsive to editing, quick to find an alternate way to get closer to what he really meant. My first introduction to Jay came with the submission of Mainspring, which I liked quite a lot but felt needed work. I sent his agent a rather long, though not comprehensive, set of notes, wondering if the author was going to be willing to do that level of revision on the book. Some writers aren’t. And then a few days later, a few days, I got a completely revised manuscript addressing all the issues I’d brought up, and mentioning more that I hadn’t. For the next round, you know. Here was a writer willing to work. So I bought the book, and some sequels. Jay never missed a deadline. Even when he was in the depths of chemo, he made his deadlines – it was a tribute to his organizational skills, and his determination. Our production people loved him.
Beth Meacham, Jay Lake (2006)
Jay worked hard every day of his life, right up to the end. He got up early, he wrote, then he went to his job. He took care of his daughter. He took care of his friends and lovers. He was embedded in his family and community – mother, father, step-mother, sister, daughter.
I’ll miss you, Jay. It was a pleasure to work with you.
–Beth Meacham
APPRECIATION FOR JAY LAKE by Jennifer Jackson
In the days leading up to and the days just after Jay’s passing, I read the outpouring of memories on blogs and social media. It seemed like everyone had a specia
l moment to share. It was at once heartbreaking and restorative to see it all brought together. It reminded me that Jay Lake was a veritable vector of connection. I thought about how many wonderful and talented people I’d connected to through Jay. Without Jay, those encounters would never have happened. I have seen countless stories of his giving back to the writing community – for example, helping to fund travel to Clarion for a student who couldn’t otherwise have afforded to attend or making sure someone at a convention was included – even swept along – in his wake.
Jay Lake, Jennifer Jackson (2007)
I’m also thinking of all those he connected to through his writing. Many of those people may not have a tale to tell of meeting Jay, but their interaction with him through story is likely in many cases nonetheless personal. He wrote fiction at a ridiculously fast rate, blogged nearly every day, and corresponded with so many people it’s a bit boggling still. He sold story after story and their diverse nature, in topic and style, feels epic. He created amazing worlds in his novels – from the clockwork earth of Mainspring to the exotic lands of Green and Trial of Flowers. His identity as a writer was very central to Jay’s sense of self. That he will continue to connect through more people discovering and reading his stories seems a fitting, if incomplete, legacy.
Jay’s passing wasn’t sudden or unexpected, but it nevertheless left a sensation much like the air going out of a room. It will be a strange, strange world to not hear his laugh at a convention, or see a new blog post, or to discover what his next idea for a story would have been. He was imaginative and full of life, and we are all the poorer for having less of him. It was a privilege to work with Jay as his agent, but even more so to have the adventure of knowing him. I’m glad to be one of his many readers and to count him as a friend.
–Jennifer Jackson
Locus, July 2014 Page 23