1976
When I met Steve Miller, he was exactly like nobody I’d ever met before. He was bright, he was smart, he was witty, he listened, and he carried with him a conviction that anything was possible: One could be a traveling poet; or on the board of a WorldCon bid; one could make a living writing reviews of local bands, records, books, typewriters; one could, in fact, live the Science Fiction life; going to cons, writing, and developing an ever-wider social network.
I had been raised to despise myself and to find all of my endeavors worthless. In fact, I was invisible to most people, and had a voice that many simply could not hear; not that I talked that much.
Steve heard me; he saw me; he liked me. This was, I stress, not unusual; Steve liked a lot of people.
For my part, I had an instant sense of recognition, of bonding, and I wanted more of this, whatever this was. Understand, I was conservative to the point of bleakness. As Steve told me once, years later, “The only reckless thing I think you’ve done was moving in with me.”
Anyway, here was a person suddenly in my orbit who didn’t find my goal to be a writer strange, or impossible; he thought I was interesting, and that my weird ideas were creative. More than that, he explained things to me, which nobody did, and I began to understand the world and people so very much better (I’ll put this out here, diagnosis-free: We did not “have” autism when I was growing up in the 1950s and 60s, but we did have “retarded.” I spent my first two years of (Catholic) school in the “retarded” class. When I was transferred to the public school, I was eventually placed in the “bright” class, which spoke to my ability to read. But I still had a terrible time understanding why people did, or said things, or how this or that – technical or social – thing worked. Steve was a sponge for information and he didn’t think I was stupid for not knowing things.)
In a very real and concrete way, Steve supported me so that I could grow into myself. I would mention an idea I had, and he would riff off of it, adding to it, giving it a spin, and lob it back. I would embroider, or disagree, or add This Other Thing – and it was glorious.
There was nothing like brainstorming with Steve Miller. Nothing.
Of course, this boundless enthusiasm had a dark side. No matter how much you might believe that all things are possible, and be able to convince other people that their ideas were worth pursuing – some things are Just Not Going to Work This Time.
When I met Steve, his first marriage had just ended, he was working with Drew Farrell to produce the StarSwarm News – a newspaper of the multiverse, featuring science news, fandom news, made-up news, classified ads. They did produce one issue, but distribution was not what they had hoped for, and the funding wasn’t there for a second issue.
More, I had (recklessly) resigned from my job as Administrative Assistant to the Dean of the School of Social Work at the University of Maryland Professional Schools in order to follow my dream of being a writer with Steve. I confessed that I had always said I would open a bookstore when I “retired,” and Steve immediately fell in with that plan, expanding it because of his involvement with convention art shows, and so Bookcastle and Dream’s Garth was born. We were a used bookstore, modeled on the school of trade-ins. If you brought in two books, you got one of your choice in exchange; if you didn’t have a book to swap, you could buy one.
Let’s just say that we had underestimated the number of people who would not have a book to trade.
We did adjust our business model before we crashed, and actually started to make the rent, and a little more than the rent.
But it was a Dream’s Garth, the traveling art agents, that we gained a certain amount of fame. Steve loved to travel. More precisely, he loved to travel to science fiction conventions – the late night long distance drives, the rush of arrival, the cluster of friends and like-minded soon-to-be-friends – he loved it all. I … learned to navigate it, and relished the travel because I was with Steve.
Long story short, we had just got the bookstore turned around and starting to show a little profit, and Dream’s Garth was going great guns, when – the landlord sold our building out from under us. We tried to relocate, but that only dug the hole deeper.
Bookcastle, and shortly thereafter, Dream’s Garth, went out of business. And Steve and Sharon were broke.