Comments on: In Memoriam: Melissa Mia Hall, 1954-2011

By: Amy Goodwin

Amy Goodwin — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 03:22:55 +0000

Melissa was helping me edit my novel. Her feedback was fabulous. Very insightful. She saw things I didn’t. I received her edits in full on January 21st. She died a week later. I am left going through her various notes. She is still very much alive to me…brilliant…funny…insightful. I know she has several unpublished novels. I hope someone will publish them. She was and remains amazing.

By: Nancy Holder

Nancy Holder — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 06:19:13 +0000

Missy would often tell me about her work at PW. She and I almost edited an anthology together; she bought a story of mine for it. We went sight-seeing in LA with my nephew; we had lunch at World Fantasy in Austin. She never forgot my birthday. We both loved our dogs. We had Egyptian names for each other. She was Mekuss. I was Nankuss.

How can she be gone? So many books…Melissa needed more time.

I love you, Missy.

By: Susan Mary Malone

Susan Mary Malone — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 15:35:00 +0000

Hi Susan,
I understand Rose wanting this space to not be used for this topic. I do have further information–email me privately and I’ll fill you in: maloneeditorial@hotmail.com

By: Rose Fox

Rose Fox — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 18:15:35 +0000

I don’t, and I’d prefer that this space not be used for further discussion of that topic.

By: Susan Campbell

Susan Campbell — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 18:12:33 +0000

I work with women who have heart disease and am very interested in more details regarding her health insurance status, in the hopes of making sure it doesn’t happen to others. Do you have any more information?

Susan Campbell

By: Lisa Evans

Lisa Evans — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 01:58:13 +0000

I’m so sorry for your loss, Jane. She sounds like a lovely person.

I am sick at heart that yet another life has been lost because we alone among industrialized countries have no national health insurance.

By: janeyolen

janeyolen — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 19:34:42 +0000

Melissa was a long term friend though we rarely saw one another, only when I got to Fort Worth, which was not all that often. But we were in touch a lot and we had long, soulful conversations. We wrote a short story together we never sold, and edited one another over the years. She was simply one of the loveliest of friends, a true mensch.

I am appalled and devastated by her much-too early death which I lay directly at the feet of the ghastly health insurance scam we have right now in this country which punishes the poorest amongst us.

She would be alive today if she’d had been able to afford insurance.

Jane Yolen

By: Susan Mary Malone

Susan Mary Malone — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 14:38:23 +0000

Thank you, Peter, for your thoughts here. Melissa would have been so pleased by them. She absolutely loved her work for PW, and of course, words were her world.
Those of us who did know and love her well are all still in shock. She told me a few days before that she was not ready to leave this planet, so, a premonition perhaps?
The week before, she guest blogged for me. Those were to be the last words she wrote. A beautiful eulogy to what makes a memorable book.
Her insights will be so sorely missed. SHE will be so sorely missed . . .

By: Ellen Datlow

Ellen Datlow — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 04:31:46 +0000

The circumstances are heartbreaking, and yes very possibly avoidable.

By: James Davis Nicoll

James Davis Nicoll — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 21:33:28 +0000

[I've removed this comment following a request from a relative of Melissa's. --Rose]