StarShipSofa has posted the podcast of Michael Bishop's "Vinegar Peace (or, The Wrong-Way, Used-Adult Orphanage)" (published originally in Asimov's, July 2008). This is a science fiction story that Mike wrote in the months following Jamie's death; here's what he has to say about it:

I wrote "Vinegar Peace" — in August of 2007 — because I had to. Our 35-year-old son, Jamie, died on the morning of April 16, 2007, as one of thirty-two victims of a disturbed shooter on the campus of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia.

Jamie, an accomplished digital artist who did lovely covers for four or five of my books, was holding forth in Room 2007 of Norris Hall in his German class more than two hours after his eventual murderer had slain two students in a dormitory on another part of campus. The administration failed to issue a warning — a warning that might well have saved many lives — in a timely fashion. However, some of its members secured their own offices and notified their own family members of this initial event; and so the worst school shooting in the history of the United States claimed our son, four other faculty members (including a man, Dr Librescu, who had survived the Holocaust and who held a table against his classroom door until all own students could escape), four of Jamie's students, and twenty-one other young people in Norris Hall, not to mention the first two victims in West Ambler-Johnston dorm. Another twenty-eight students were wounded by bullets or injured leaping from upper-story windows. Some of these young people will live with their injuries the rest of their lives.

All of the administrators, with the exception of a woman who later died of a stroke or a heart attack (a death that my wife and I can't help but attribute partially to the stress of living with the mistakes of the President and the other Policy Group members), remain in their positions. So much for accountability, and so much for justice.

In any case, "Vinegar Peace" grew from this disaster and from a grief that I can't imagine ever laying totally aside. Jeri and I mourn Jamie's loss every day in some private way, and we think continually of all the other parents and loved ones of the slain and injured who will carry a similar burden with them until they die. We think, too, of the parents and loved ones of the dead and wounded from the United States's optional war in Iraq, who long for their dead and who pray for their injured with an intensity not a whit different from our own. How ironic that our son died on American soil. How sad the wasted potential and disfigured lives resulting from violence everywhere. And forgive me the inadequacy of these remarks. Clearly, I wrote a story because I could not address either my outrage or my grief in any other way.

Mike Bishop

You can download the one-hour episode directly at the show page, or subscribe to the StarShipSofa podcast via iTunes.

(via The Flea King and Boing Boing)

This has been a rough week. I've had to miss school again for days because of The-Flu-That-Would-Not-Go-Away (followers of my Twitter feed have had to suffer through updates like "Home sick again. Doc just prescribed antibiotics, said I needed them if things were hanging around like this, and if I had sinus pain. Bluh.") I can't remember the last time I've been laid low by such an illness (although the cold/flu I got in New York in December comes pretty close), where beyond the usual symptoms are a powerful lethargy and inability to concentrate or get anything done. It also hasn't helped that the three kinds of medication I've been given all make me drowsy. These days off would have been productive for marking papers or novel writing, but I've barely done anything besides sleep, check TweetDeck, and occasionally watch TV.

This week also marks the two-year anniversary of Jamie Bishop's death. It's been creeping up on me for a few weeks, and I could see it coming if I turned my head and looked out the corner of my eye, but then it rushed up on me all of a sudden earlier this week. I've been feeling depressed these last couple of weeks, and I'm sure that this is a big reason why.

It sometimes feels masochistic, re-opening this wound every year and displaying it publicly for all the internets to see. Why do I keep wallowing in this pain? Is it because I've gotten on with my life and feel bad that I don't think about Jamie more often? Or is that I'm trying to find a way to stay connected to him and his memory? I don't know. Maybe both.

One thing I've been thinking a lot about this past week is something that I omitted from my account of the Blackburg visit in January 2007. The last night that Janet and I were there, Jamie made homemade pizzas for dinner; completely homemade, down to the dough itself. It was delicious pizza (I don't remember if it was vegetarian, but there were lots of veggies), perfectly cooked. As we ate at Jamie and Steffi's dining table, we chatted about different things. At some point, Jamie mentioned the TV series Friday Night Lights, which he'd been enjoying.

"Oh, I've see the commercials for that one," I said. "It's the one about the high school football team in a small Midwest town, right?"

"Yeah, that's right. The football is certainly important, but it's more about small town politics and the relationship the coach has with his wife and the players."

"See," I said, "that would probably just get me mad, having to watch conflicts because of small-minded conservative politics."

"Well, it is maddening sometimes," Jamie said, "but it's also very well written. You might like it."

"I don't know, man. I mean, aren't these movies and series all the same after a while? The sports team that fights against obstacles and complications and in the end triumphs over adversity? Isn't this all a bit cliche by now?"

Jamie frowned and I had the feeling I'd gone too far. "Maybe, but cliche is everywhere. Even in science fiction."

I was about to counter with all of the original sf stories and films that I could think of, but I sensed that this was a pivotal moment in our friendship. I could defend my position, and then he could defend his, and then we could get in a big fight about it, ruining the rest of the night, and possibly the rest of the trip. Or I could just let it go. I had hurt him with my comments, that much was clear; he had been trying to share something that he clearly liked and wanted to recommend to a good friend, and I had thrown it back in his face. I'd been arrogant and dismissive and not a nice friend in that moment.

So I dropped it. Instead of being a major incident, it was just a minor blip in an otherwise lovely weekend. We talked some more, finished up the pizza, and then put on a movie. The next morning we all hung out and saw a bit more of Blacksburg, and then Janet and I headed back to Raleigh in the early afternoon. The rest of the visit had been pleasant as always, and it seemed that any blunders made the night before had been forgiven. Which was certainly a good thing, especially in light of what happened just a few months later.

But still, I keep thinking, why was I so quick to slag off this show that I hadn't even seen? Why had I been compelled to be so closed-minded and slap down my friend's suggestion? Why couldn't I have just kept my trap shut and actually listened to what he had to say, and give it a decent chance?

In hindsight, it was certainly a misstep on my part, but Jamie was quick to put it behind us and not hold it against me. He was the bigger man that night, and this realization has caused me to be more patient my interactions, to be more open-minded, especially when friends or acquaintances recommend something to me. It is one of the many things that Jamie did that has helped me to be a better person, and it makes me all the more grateful that I was lucky enough to be his friend for the short time that I knew him.

P.S. The image above is "Thanatopsis" by Jamie Bishop. It's one of my favorite pieces that he did, and I always thought it would make an amazing book cover.

P.P.S. The following note comes from Lisa Koedding:

BLACKSBURG, Va., April 9, 2009 "Jamie Bishop: A Retrospective," an exhibition of graphic designs and photographs by Jamie Bishop, the Virginia Tech German instructor who died on April 16, 2007 in Norris Hall, will be on display in Blacksburg starting April 15 through July 14.

The display will be shown at VTLS, Inc. headquarters, located on 1701 Kraft Drive in Blacksburg. Viewing hours to the general public are Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The works on display include sketches by Bishop from the early 1990s and his last photo cycle, South Main Series, made the year he died. Also on display are several graphic designs created by Bishop. Before his death, he had been accepted into the art program at Virginia Tech and planned to take his first classes in summer 2007.

Bishop planned to earn an MFA and to pursue a career in graphic design.

A very nice surprise came in my inbox last night from andreas_black: convention photos of him, Luna, me, Janet, and Jamie at Trinoc-con in 2004. My immense thanks to Andreas for digging these up and sending them on.







Photos © 2009 by Andreas Black. Used with permission.

Self-Portrait with Flowers by Jamie Bishop:


November 9 is Jamie Bishop's birthday. He would have turned 37 today.

His sister Stephanie recently posted some photos on Facebook of both Jamie and his artwork.

I still think about him and miss him a lot.

N.B. It seems that Jamie's portfolio website, memory39.com, is down (or at least the domain wasn't renewed), but you can still find it hosted at this UNC account.

"Passing for Human" by Jamie Bishop

A year ago today, I found out that my good friend Jamie Bishop had died. One year, and it's passed so quickly. I almost missed the date entirely; school has been especially hectic lately, and I've also been ill, which dampens my concentration and cognitive abilities. Today was a long one, wherein I helped to invigilate a term test for about 250 students, and didn't even leave campus until 5 p.m., and I'm tired and really should be in bed by now, but I didn't want today to pass without any comment of its significance.

A year ago, I was just stepping out of the shower, and Janet was telling me, "Don't turn on the TV." When I asked why, she just told me to come upstairs and see her as soon as I finished getting dressed. Janet's not one for surprises, and doesn't like keeping secrets, so I really knew something was up. I pulled my clothes on quickly and hurried upstairs, where she told me about the horrible massacre at Virginia Tech. At that point, it was still unclear who had been killed, and how many, but the news was that a German class had been hit, and the teacher had been shot.

It was one of those moments where I was taken completely out of myself. I felt lightheaded and numb (I'm sure all the blood had drained from my face), and it was as if I was no longer looking through my eyes, but somehow behind my eyes, which made Janet and the room in which we stood seem very far away. I didn't want to believe the news. I couldn't. I quickly fired up the iBook and checked the BBC and Google News, but the reports were still preliminary, and no names had been released. Mass confusion, and wild speculation, and no one knew exactly what had happened yet.

Email brought messages from Alex Wilson and Mike Jasper, who had also been great friends of Jamie's (and who wrote beautiful remembrances of him here and here, which I did not properly acknowledge last year; sorry, guys), asking if anyone had heard from him or Steffi. I still had their phone number from when Janet and I had visited Blacksburg in January 2007, and I ran downstairs with it in my sweating fist. After getting the okay from Janet's mum that it was okay to make the transcontinental call, I dialled multiple times, getting busy signals; understandable, since I figured other people would be trying to also find out if they were safe. After maybe a dozen tries, the call finally went through. My hands were shaking and my breath was unsteady.

A friend of Jamie's (a colleague at VT, I believe) picked up the phone, but his voice sounded so similar to my friend's that the first word out of my mouth was "Jamie?" For that split-second before he answered in the negative, an entire other world unfolded before me, one where a different classroom had been hit, or where he'd called in sick and someone else had covered his lessons, or where the media had just been wrong about what had happened and blown everything out of proportion, or where he'd been shot but it had only grazed his shoulder and he was already home from the hospital, or where, or where, or where.

But then his friend said, "No, I'm sorry," and told me his name, which I almost immediately forgot. When I told him who I was and asked if Jamie and Steffi were there and safe, he said, "Look, I hate to do this, but I'm going to have to ask you a few questions first. The media have been calling here all day, and I need to make sure you're a friend." He asked me to describe something that people wouldn't normally know about them, and after faltering for about a minute, he asked me to give some specifics about their living room (I'm guessing because he was standing there at that moment). I told him about the DVD shelf Jamie had constructed, and the four giant digital collages he'd created (by blowing up an image then printing it out in smaller segments, then painstakingly reassembling the images into the whole by pasting them all onto plywood, and doing it so carefully that you could only really see the seams if you were less than a few feet away).

After a few minutes of listening to my stumbling description, he stopped me and said, "Okay, I believe you. The good news is that Steffi is safe; she's here right now, in the other room. But Jamie was one of the ones killed."

I let out a long shaky breath and couldn't speak. Jamie's friend let the silence hang for a moment. I don't know whether he volunteered to be the spokesman for our mutual friends, or if it was thrust upon him, but I deeply appreciated (and still do) his patience and his delivery. He'd just lost a friend as well, but here he was fielding phone call after phone call, having to deliver terrible news over and over, and do it with a steady tone and unwavering understanding.

I thanked him for telling me the truth, and asked if there was anything I could do, although I couldn't imagine what I could contribute, being on the other side of the planet. He said that things were being taken care of, and that Michael and Jeri Bishop were on their way up from Georgia. I felt helpless in that moment, useless by dint of distance. I wanted to do something, anything. I told him to please relay my sympathies and support to Steffi and both their families, and then I hung up.

My feet didn't want to move, but somehow I made it back up the three flights of stairs to the room that Janet and I use as a home office. She turned in her chair and said, "So?" All I could do was nod my head before bursting into tears. She hugged me, and I held her close, not wanting to let go, needing to cling onto something important in this life, and we both wept and held each other and wept some more.

Eventually, I was able to sit back at my iBook again and relay confirmation of the news to Mike and Alex, as well as to Andreas and Luna Black (again mutual friends), and then blog about it.

On April 16, 2007, Jamie, along with thirty-one other VT faculty members and students, was murdered by Cho Seung-Hui, a young man with severe behavioral problems and easy access to semi-automatic firearms.

In the days that followed, I tried to stay on top of the news stories, and blog about them, to spread the information. Reporters from National Public Radio, The Washington Post, The Associated Press, Carolina Alumni Review, and The Carrboro Citizen emailed requesting interviews or statements, and I pointed them all to my tribute, stating that this was everything I wanted to publicly say. (At least they were polite, unlike Inside Edition, who made Alex throw up in his mouth because of their incredible lack of tact.)

Any news about memorial scholarships, or essay awards, or any other kind of encomiums to Jamie went up on the blog. It became an obsession for a while, a way to finally be able to help in some way when I couldn't before. When Paul Di Filippo (who is an extremely nice guy, and is very close friends with Mike Bishop) would post news first up at theinferior4, most likely because Mike had emailed him the information, I would feel left out of the loop, cut out of the circle of importance, and angry at Paul for posting it first. Sure, Paul is a close family friend, but what about me?

Grief brought out a profound selfishness, which I'm sure that you, my astute and long-suffering blog readers, were probably aware of. My pain was most important, my suffering was worse than anybody's, my feelings were at stake. Forget Jamie's devastated wife, and his grieving parents, and his many other family members and friends, and our mutual friends, forget about everyone else, what about me?

There are times in my life when my ego has gotten me into trouble, but it was never as big as in the days and weeks and months after the shootings at Virginia Tech. And I feel like such a shit about it now. Even after I had begun moving on, and living my life again, and feeling guilty that I wasn't hurting as much, I still felt like my blog should be the most comprehensive source for information concerning Jamie's death and his legacy. And this wasn't fair. I didn't treat a lot of people very well in the last year because of my ego, and I'm very sorry for this now.

I still think about Jamie quite a bit. I was passing by a comics shop a few weeks ago, and on a whim asked if they had a copy of Bill Sienkiewicz's graphic novel Stray Toasters, which Jamie had enthused about during the Blacksburg trip. Luckily, the shop had one copy, so I bought it, took it home, and over the next four nights read it. It's extremely dark and surreal, and I'm still trying to suss out the significance and symbolism that saturates every page. Not an easy story to read, but the artwork certainly shares a sensibility with Jamie's work, and there are some moments of dark humor that I could see him laughing at and wanting to discuss.

During a lull in classes today, I visited memory39, and was glad to see that it was back up again (I'd checked several days ago, and the site was down, making me wonder if VT had canceled Jamie's account there, which seemed like an incredible loss, as his entire portfolio is on that site; I wrote to Mike letting him know this, and I don't know what he did, but the site is back up now, although I notice it's now on a UNC server, which is where it was previously located while he was working there). I browsed through the different illustrations and photographs, reading the commentary, as well as the bio and artistic statement, and in general reacquainting myself with my lost friend.

I'll just end with a quote from Mike Bishop, taken from the catalogue that accompanied the recent exhibition of Jamie's work at the Lamar Dodd Art Center at LaGrange College. (I very much hope that Mike doesn't mind.) It refers to the artwork posted at the top of this entry, which is the cover art for Passing for Human, an anthology forthcoming from PS Publishing in the UK, which was edited by Michael Bishop and Steven Utley. It is the last book cover that Jamie undertook, and it will appear posthumously.

Jamie himself was fully human, with all the quirks and qualities that the phrase "fully human" implies, but he was definitely passing for human, as we all must do; and I regret with all my heart that he passed, with no real chance to do otherwise, long before he should have.

--Michael Bishop

I still miss Jamie an awful lot. And my heart goes out to everyone else who does as well. May we all never forget him, and see him in another life.

1. The Mundane and the Magical: an Interview with Vandana Singh. Jesse Vernon at Ambling Along the Aqueduct interviews the wonderful Vandana Singh about her recent novella Of Love and Other Monsters. Which reminds me that I need to order this.

2. Michael Bishop mentions here that the LaGrange College Art Department is hosting Memory 39, an exhibition of Jamie's amazing artwork (and also the name of his website), at the Lamar Dodd Art Center, which runs from February 1 - April 24, 2008. If you're in the Georgia area, please consider checking it out; if you do, please let me know. Mike is sending me a copy of the catalogue produced in conjunction with the exhibition, but I wouldn't mind hearing first-person accounts as well.

Along similar lines, the IAFA announced today the 2008 recipient of the Jamie Bishop Memorial Award for an Essay Not in English, which goes to "Professor María Beatriz Cóceres for her award-winning essay 'Poéticas del multireal: extrañamiento del motivo del doble en los cuentos de Julio Cortázar y Dino Buzzati' ('Poetics of the Multireal: Estrangement of the Double Motif in the Short Fiction of Julio Cortázar and Dino Buzzati'). Information on Professor Cóceres and an overview of the essay is available" here.

"Sensible gun laws needed," an opinion piece by Michael Bishop in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. What he said.

After living in a country for nine months where guns are banned, I tend to take a stricter view of gun control than Mike does; I'd like to see guns go away, period. But I know that's never going to happen. Still, measures can definitely be taken to ensure that horrific events like what happened at Virginia Tech to my good friend and 32 others are far less likely to happen again.

Alex Wilson recently wrote up his experiences of being a first-time guest at a convention (and sharing a panel table with George R.R. Martin to boot). He also talks about how specifically Trinoc-con is linked to his friendship with Jamie Bishop; my response to his thoughtfulness was to hijack his comments with my own story about Jamie and Trinoc-con. Oh well.

Here it is:

The first year that I was invited to be a guest (both Jamie and Mike Jasper urged me to contact Dan Reid about it), I pitched a fit because my name and bio had been left out of the program book; I'd had a few small publications at that point and was all full of myself. I mean, goddammit, I was a published author and they had left me out of the program book? Me? The volunteer who endured my wrath shrunk from my egomaniacal ranting and fled as soon as he could.

I saw Jamie almost immediately afterward; he was in the dealer's room helping out his dad with a signing, and seeing that I was in some distress, he pulled up a chair behind the table and asked what was wrong. I told him, and he smiled, as if to say, "That's all?" then rightly pointed out that it had probably just been an innocent mistake, and gave examples of all the ways that his dad had been screwed over (innocently or not) during the course of his literary career, and yet the man was still kind and generous and down to earth. I couldn't let this little stuff get to me, and I certainly couldn't punish other people for it.

While we were sitting there, the guest liaison found me and apologized profusely for my absence in the program book, and I sheepishly told her that it was okay, that I'd overreacted before, it was an innocent mistake. When I later saw the staffer that I'd berated before, a man who was not being paid at all for his help during the convention, I made sure to apologize to him for my behavior.

Jamie brought me back to the real world, as he did many times afterward, and I'll never forget it.

Congratulations to Carlos Abraham for winning the 2007 Jamie Bishop Memorial Award for an Essay Not in English for his essay "Las utopías literarias argentinas en el período 1850-1950" (PDF). The award will be presented along with $250 at ICFA in March 2008.

And if you haven't been to the IAFA website in a while, they've recently revamped, and wow does it look better. Much less cluttered, more functional, easier to navigate. A much-deserved facelift.

From Paul Di Filippo:

A week or two ago, the Bishops were interviewed for GOOD MORNING AMERICA on the death of their son Jamie. The result is--tentatively, but with high probability--scheduled to air on the GMA show of Tuesday August 21, between 7-7:30 AM.

Tune in, if you would.

The story did air this morning; if you missed it, or are like me and don't even live in the country, ABC has posted the interview on the GMA website (although you'll have to endure a 15- or 30-second commercial before it starts).

The piece made me both happy and sad. Happy that they used photos of Jamie growing up, and video of him riding his bike as a kid; also to see that Mike and Jeri are holding up admirably (and Jamie's sister Stephanie), and did incredibly well in front of the camera; also that GMA did a respectful job with the piece (I've been disappointed with their lazy reportage in the past, but they got this one right).

And I'm also sad all over again, because of all the expected reasons.

I can't believe it has been four months since he died. Classes at Virginia Tech start up again this week, and he should have been there.

pgdf points to an essay by Michael Bishop from yesterday's WaPo, proposing a fitting memorial to Jamie and all the students and faculty who were killed at Virginia Tech in April:

Along with our son's widow, a professor at Virginia Tech, and many others, my wife Jeri and I urge the administration to convert a part of Norris Hall into a center for the study of international peace and crime prevention -- as one component in a campaign to promote peace and campus safety everywhere.

Many of those slain, wounded or emotionally scarred by the April 16 shootings were international students or faculty members. There could be no more fitting memorial to the dead, or tribute to the survivors, than to redeem the horror that occurred in Norris Hall by establishing such a center within its walls.

Some believe that no one will ever forget that morning, but as human beings we sadly require fresh reminders of matters we would prefer to forget -- the Holocaust, for example. Hence, the necessity of sanctifying space in Norris Hall to remember, analyze and prevent further acts of the sort that killed our loved ones.

Link to the full article.

***

As I mentioned here, I was asked by Trinoc*con Literary Chair Dan Reid (aka interrociter) to write a remembrance of Jamie for this year's program book. The convention was this past weekend, and so I would like to share this short piece with all of you. I had a helluva time trying to think of something that would fit the word range Dan assigned (200-500 words), but I'm proud of what I came up with, and I'm honored that Dan thought to ask me.


"Anamnesis for the Artist"
© 2007 by Jason Erik Lundberg

He sits across from me with his lovely wife. Among the dozen or so around us at the large restaurant table, he and she are the only ones close to my age. The second night of the very first Trinoc*con, September 2000, and I've managed to insinuate myself into dinner at a seafood place in downtown Durham with Hugo and Nebula winners. It is because I am so reticent around the others at the restaurant, writers whose work I admire and idolize, that he pushes his glasses back up his nose and introduces himself.

"Hi, I'm Jamie," he says. He points a thumb at Michael Bishop next to him: "I'm this guy's son."

I give my name and shake his hand and the hand of his wife Steffi. He asks if I'm a writer, and though unpublished at that point, I say yes.

"See, I admire you for that. I barely have enough energy at the end of the day to sit and stare at the television."

"But I've seen your stuff in the Art Show," I say, remembering now why his name is familiar. "I imagine that took time and energy to produce."

He dismisses this with a wave of his hand. "That's just noodling, nothing serious. The skill that it takes to create a story out of nothing, that's something special."

No matter how much I try to convince him otherwise, that I could never do what he can do, that his digital collages show ingenuity and originality, he insists that his artwork is no big deal. We continue to discuss art, writing, science fiction, movies, and books, and soon I forget about the other luminaries at the table, the author guests in whose presence until very recently I'd been intimidated into silence.

We will continue this amazing and fulfilling friendship over the next seven years, getting together to watch movies, converse about our passions and our lives, and collaborate on literary projects (my words and his illustrations, our humble version of the Gaiman/McKean dynamic). He will advise me on the merits of graduate school, and the twisty roads of marriage that must be navigated with care. We will support each other in our artistic endeavors, which can be seen at memory39.com and jasonlundberg.net respectively.

Jamie will lose his life at the hands of a crazed gunman while teaching a German class in April 2007, and the news will devastate me half a world away in Singapore. His absence will leave such a hole in my heart that I will worry it can never be mended. I will fervently wish for time travel technology, so that I can go back and warn him.

But all of that, the wonderful shared times and the eventual heartbreaking loss, is in the future. Tonight, at that seafood restaurant in Durham, I discover a kindred spirit, a brother-in-arms, a generous friend. And it makes me undeniably happy.

(Also posted to JasonLundberg dot Net.)

Trinoc*con 8 will be kicking off in a about a week and a half, once again at the North Raleigh Hilton. This will be the first year that I won't be attending (I went the first three years as a fanboy and wannabe, and the next four years as a literary guest), and it looks like I'll be missing a great line-up:

George R. R. Martin (Guest of Honor)
Elizabeth Hand (Special Guest)
Dale Bailey
Nathan Ballingrud
Stacey Cochran
John Kessel
K. A. Laity
James Maxey
Sandra McDonald
Scott Nicholson
Stephen Mark Rainey
Warren Rochelle
Edmund R. Schubert
Alexandra Sokoloff
Graham Watkins
Alex Wilson
Allen Wold

Although I won't be there in person, I will be in spirit; Dan Reid, Literary Chair Extraordinaire, asked if I would write a short tribute to Jamie Bishop (500 words), and I happily obliged. It should be appearing on the inside back cover of the program book as "Anamnesis for the Artist," and I'll reprint it on JLdN after the convention is over.

Y'all mix it up in Raleigh for me.

From the official blog of the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts:

The IAFA is proud to announce that the annual award given for best essay not in English has been officially renamed The Jamie Bishop Memorial Award for an Essay Not in English. Jamie taught German at Virginia Tech and his fantastic artwork has been the cover art for books by Michael Jasper and Michael Bishop. Jamie’s impressive electronic portfolio can be found at http://www.memory39.com.

Kind of a mouthful, and I'm a little puzzled that Jamie's name is being attached to an academic award, since he didn't consider himself an academic in any way, and his only relation to academia was teaching German classes at a university. However, I am pleased to see his name live on in this context, as he was certainly a member of the skiffy community, and ICFA is a conference his dad regularly attends.

Locus Online has posted a letter of thanks from Mike Bishop, and a tribute to Jamie by Jack Slay, Jr.

I love this part from Jack's tribute:

He taught German at Virginia Tech, but his passion was graphic design, as evidenced in the covers he created for four of his father's books: Edgewood Press' Time Pieces, Golden Gryphon's Brighten to Incandescence, and PS Publishing's A Reverie for Mr. Ray and the forthcoming Passing for Human. You can see in those bright busy covers the glee of the artist's mind, the wonder and talent and promise that this young man held, the world that unfurled before him.

I taught Brighten to Incandescence in a course this past fall, and Mike, gracious as ever, agreed to visit and share the whats and whys of some of the stories. One of the secrets he confessed to this class was his intense dislike of chihuahuas, that yippy, palsied breed of dog. He drew attention to the cover, mentioned with more than a little pride how his son had designed it; then he pointed to the spine where a chihuahua glared out at the world. "Jamie did that on purpose," Mike told us, grinning. "Designed it so that I would be forever stared down by that infernal chihuahua."

It made me laugh when Jamie told me that he was going to do that, and it still puts a smile on my face. The wraparound cover is on the BtI page, and the full story behind its design can be found at memory39.

Paul Di Filippo attended the memorial service for Jamie Bishop this past week in Pine Mountain, Georgia, and shares a brief report at the inferior 4+1.

I wish I could have been there to pay my respects and say a final goodbye to my friend, but I'll have to settle for reading about it secondhand.

JeffV passes along the news that LaGrange College in Georgia, where Mike Bishop teaches, has established a scholarship fund in Jamie's name for students in graphic arts, which I think is a wonderful idea.

Jamie Bishop Scholarship Fund in Graphic Arts
c/o LaGrange College
601 Broad Street
LaGrange, GA 30240

Designate the name of the fund on your check, should you wish to send a donation.

This scholarship fund has the family's full support.

You can also make an online donation to the college's website; please be sure to designate the name of the fund when you give.

I had more than a few people asking me last week about ways that they could donate online to the Jamie Bishop Memorial Scholarship Fund at VT, and I had to tell them that I didn't know because I wasn't associated with it. The only information offered at that point was a physical address where to mail a check or cash donation.

But themarquisez did some research, and found out the following, which she posted in the comments of this entry:

Following up on what you've said here and also because I wanted to do something *positive* following this tragedy, I searched the Virginia Tech site for possible scholarships, funds, etc. They now do have a donations area, and it's called the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund. While I'm sure you know the site already, other readers here may not and the link can be found at: http://www.vt.edu/tragedy/memorial_fund.php. Specifically, if they go to that page and then click on the link under 'funds in honor or memory of the victims', that page will take them to another page where they can make donations online and *directly to* the Jamie Bishop Memorial Scholarship Fund (use the drop down menu off the donation page). I understand donations sent in without any designation to a particular fund will go to the larger Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund. Additionally, people can choose to make more than a one-time donation, if they so wish (and that's also on the online donation page), so it can be a recurring gift.

For people overseas, or just wishing to send in a credit card donation instead of a check, this is the place to go to donate directly to the Jamie Bishop Memorial Scholarship Fund. My thanks to themarquisez for bringing it to my attention.

Talked to my parents via Skype today, since it was the first time this week that I felt I've been able to express aloud what I've been feeling. I was probably terse in our conversation as well, because it's still hard for me (despite how much I've been blogging). Mom and Dad, as always, were great reassuring voices; they've been checking on me all week long, and I'm glad for it.

I listened to Ajahn Brahm's podcast lecture on "Coping With Loss" (MP3), which seemed to help.

I've also been listening to Nine Inch Nails and The Church, because somehow that has seemed to help as well. Also, the soundtrack to the film Run Lola Run, which Jamie introduced me to, and, as Alex reminds me, was "definitely his go-to movie."

And of course, Janet has been an incredible support. As has her family.

As have all of you beautiful people.

And, appropos of nothing, a review of mine went up this past week, turned in last weekend to Vagablogging.net, for Mark Ehrman's book Getting Out: Your Guide to Leaving America.

I just received this email from Mike Bishop, and he gave his permission to share it with the community, so I'm doing so here:

Dear Jason and Janet,

Thank you for writing with such caring support. The response to our heartbreak has been overwhelming and sustaining. Below I'm copying a message I sent to my friend and colleague at LaGrange College, Jack Slay. And, when I can, I will read your tribute to Jamie, Jason.

Love,
Mike & Jeri

***

Dear Jack,

Please let everyone know that we suffered an Internet outage here and that I'm replying from the house of a friend of Steffi's, after Steffi, her mother from Germany, our Stephanie, our son-in-law Bridger, Jeri, and I spent about three hours at McCoy's Funeral Home taking turns being with the returned body of our husband, son-in-law, brother, brother-in-law, and son, Jamie, whom the employees of McCoy, without using any extreme measures (for we had forbidden them to), had cleaned up, dressed in clothes of Jamie's own, and laid out on a gurney in a quiet parlor. These individual and group viewings were tremendously cathartic, and I was grateful that the gunshot wound that killed Jamie, apparently almost immediately, was one to his chest.

Had he been facially mutilated, I could not have brought myself to behold that wound, and seeing him looking so much himself, awaiting somebody's encouragement to awake and go out with us all, comforted me and most of the others a great deal. Steffi, his wife, spent the most time with him, as she should have done, of course, but all six of us, along with three close friends, took real solace from these several emotional visits. It was hard to leave him there, for now his hair will be shaved to make wigs for young cancer patients and his body -- upon which we all laid hands, massaged, or kissed, or all of these things -- will be cremated according to his wish. Steffi will receive his ashes and commit them to an urn.

I can't write much more. Stephanie needs the computer, but you are welcome to share this message with the community. The scene I've just described marks the climax of a difficult week (as everyone already knows, by a compassionate intuition from which we have benefited even here in Blacksburg), and because of it, we are almost ready to come home and to resume our lives, uplifted by our memories of Jamie and by the extraordinary support of friends and loved ones from all over. Jack, thanks for your prayers, your tears, and your heartbreaking empathy, and I say these same words to everyone who has written, e-mailed, or called, even as I beg everyone to excuse me for limiting my individual responses over the next two days. There is still work to do. And more tears to shed. And more stories to share.

Love,
Mike

The only other information I've gotten is that there is will be an intimate private remembrance in Blacksburg this weekend, and then Mike and Jeri will go home to Pine Mountain, where there is probably going to be some sort of memorial service. If I hear of anything else, I'll be sure to pass it along.

From MSNBC:

Jamie Bishop and Jocelyne Couture-Nowak will go on teaching, thanks to a scholarship fund established in their names by friends of the two professors who were among five faculty members killed Monday at Virginia Tech.

“What better way to honor them than to give them the chance to continue teaching even after they've gone on and can't be in the classroom, across from those they loved, their students,” Prof. Mary Paddock told NBC’s Peter Alexander on TODAY.

[...]

Paddock described Bishop as an incredibly giving person with a passion for painting, photography and music. He wore his hair long, and when he cut it he donated it to Locks of Love, a charity which provides natural hair wigs to disadvantaged children who suffer hair loss because of long-term medical issues.

“That's entirely typical of him,” she said. “I think if there was anything else he could have donated, he would have done that as well.”

Paddock started to say that Bishop was “a little crazy,” but corrected herself, saying “Crazy wouldn't be right, but he was very creative, he's an artist ... It was more than a passion for him. It was almost, I think, an ideology for him. I think it was a way to not just look at the world but make a difference in the world.”

The Jamie Bishop and Jocelyne Couture-Nowak Scholarships will be awarded annually to German and French majors at Virginia Tech.

Donations may be made payable to the Virginia Tech Foundation for the Jocelyne Couture-Nowak Scholarship (for French majors) or the Jamie Bishop Scholarship (for German majors):

Virginia Tech Foundation
University Development
902 Prices Fork Road
Blacksburg, VA 24061

(via Brett and JeffV)