You are lucky to meet a few people in your life’s journey who seem to be immortal. Michael Sperberg-McQueen is one of those people. His presence was larger than life. His intellect was amazing. This is why it is such a shock that he is gone. I still cannot believe it. He seemed like he would always be there.

I have attended almost every Balisage conference. I have looked forward to Michael’s closing remarks at every conference. Every time I leave shaking my head and saying to myself “How in the world did he do that”? He pulled every contributor into his closing statements, made them feel important and relevant. He made his presentation entertaining and engaging. Unreal (or unearthly)!

He had a unique quality in that when you talked to him about technical issues, he made you feel like you were clever and smart – even if you weren’t. I remember presenting a paper at a conference in Duke University in the early 2000’s. I had just discovered Slidy (XML slideshow application) and thought I would “eat my own dogfood” (this was a thing in early XML). He was so interested in the technical aspects of my presentation since I didn’t use Powerpoint.

He will be missed. He was genuinely a good person!