Michelle Sagara

Word is slowly filtering out. Martin H. Greenberg, of Tekno books, died in his sleep, at home, yesterday morning. I met Marty a number of times, because he came to the DAW dinners at various worldcons over the past two decades. DAW published a lot of his anthologies, and he was always invited. He was a tall man, and he was a gentleman; he was always friendly, whether he knew you well or had just met you for the first time.

When I first met him, he had Larry Segriff in tow (I assumed Larry was just out of College at the time, which made Larry laugh out loud when I finally mentioned this); later, I met John Helfers, Russell Davis, and Denise Little. I also met his wife. They were all part of what became Tekno books. I had far more contact with any of these people, outside of conventions, than Marty - but seeing Marty was always a highlight of the convention.

Marty treated the writers who contributed to his anthologies well. He always paid on time. He always paid. If there was any difficulty, he was quick to respond to it. During the kerfuffle about pro-rata royalties some years back, it never occurred to me that his intent was to defraud authors--he made a mistake. Anyone, meeting Marty, couldn't assume any ill-will toward authors at all. It was impossible not to give him the benefit of the doubt in any circumstance where it might be required. Every editor who worked under Tekno picked up the same business philosophy, and they were as much a delight to work with as Marty.

He was, in every possible way, a gentleman. At the moment, there's a large, Martin H. Greenberg shaped void in the world, and I don't think anyone can fill it.

I apologize because this is long. I'm not finished yet, and it's long.

Social media is everywhere, and for stay-at-home writers with small children, it's often the only reliable way of, well, socializing; all other social events take a lot of organization and lead-time. If your small child needs attention Right Now, you can pause email in the middle with no harm done; you can post short status updates or tweets, and you can read and contribute to your social streams when you can manage to steal a few minutes here or there.
( context is everything )