Good morning Hank, it’s Tuesday.

My friend and mentor Bill Ott died last week. Bill was the publisher of Booklist Magazine for over 30 years. He was my first boss, he was a brilliant writer and editor, and a wonderful friend. And also, as readers of The Anthropocene Reviewed may know, he kind of saved my life one time. 

I know some of y'all have heard that story, but I want to tell it again in Bill's memory. So in late 2001, I had a mental health crisis, and my depression got so bad that in consultation with my parents, it was decided that I needed to quit my job and move home to Florida to get full-time care. 

And so one morning I went into Bill's office. Now he was the publisher of the magazine, he was my boss's boss's boss. There were proof pages of the magazine spread out all over his desk. I worked there less than two years, like any normal boss would have been like, "It's so great to have worked with you, I'm sorry you're going through this, and I really wish you well." 

But instead, he said, "Ah, kid." And then he paused. Bill had serious speech challenges as a kid, and as an adaptation, he developed these masterful pauses, so that you were always just leaning forward when he delivered the punchline or some brilliant observation. 

And so after that long pause, he said, "Ah, why don't you just take some time off, and let us know how you're feeling in a few weeks." 

Later, when I was packing up my stuff to leave Booklist, I found that Bill had left a note on my computer. I still have that note. It ends, "Now, more than ever, watch Harvey," which was this movie he loved that he wanted me to see. 

And it turned out that he wanted me to see it for a reason, because it is about somebody living with serious mental illness, who nonetheless is valuable and important and worthy.

I got better, I went back to work, I was able to review hundreds more books, and then eventually wrote my own book under the guidance of Bill's wife, the great children's book author Ilene Cooper. That book, Looking for Alaska, went on to win the Printz Award, and when I accepted that award with a speech, Bill was there. 

And he came up to me afterwards and he was like, "I really liked your speech, kid. Except for that stuff about morality." That was really our only longstanding disagreement, over whether stories had some kind of moral or ethical responsibility to their readers. Bill maintained that a novel's job was to be good and true, and I maintained that in order to be true, a novel had to be hopeful and redemptive, which Bill thought was a bunch of hogwash and that novels needed hope like fish need bicycles. 

And I just loved having those big conversations with Bill, because he was so much older and wiser than me, but he still took me seriously, and because he seemed to have read everything. He taught me to love mystery novels and old movies, and he taught me about precision in writing, how the second-best word simply won't suffice. 

But here's the biggest thing I learned from Bill. He loved his work and he was passionate about it, but the love of his life was not Booklist or even books. It was people. 

He loved his wife Ilene, with whom he shared the most profound connection and the most uproarious humor. He loved his daughter so much, and he loved his grandson, like when I picture Bill, I don't think of him reading or editing, I think of the way his face lit up when he had a story to tell me about his kid. Bill taught me that work matters and stories matter, but nothing matters like people do.

If you've benefited from my work in any way, you've also benefited from Bill's work, and I know many writers who would say the same. I mean, there's a good chance that if you love a book, Bill wrote or edited one of the early reviews that helped that book get to more people. 

For me, that's both the heartbreak and the hope of human life- everything goes. Everything. Except for the love we pour into others, and into the world. I'm so grateful for the love Bill shared with me, and I hope he knew how much I admired him, and how desperately I will miss him. 

Hank, I'll see you on Friday.