Michael Van Rooy (3 May 1968 – 27 January 2011)

Michael Van Rooy: witty, intelligent, sardonic, kind, curious, driven, big-hearted. Michael has been part of our THIN AIR team for several years, working tirelessly and imaginatively to connect this city’s readers with our writers—and working (playing?) just as tirelessly and imaginatively with all of us to keep us connected with one another and the vision that propels us. We are reeling from yesterday’s news of his death in Montreal. How is this possible?

Michael was a bit of a giant, but we always knew he was our giant. He would sail into the office with a rant about someone’s stupidity (honestly, he was in more accidents than any person I know), and we would always end up hijacked by the laughter. He could tell a mean story, often at his own expense, and he loved nothing better than a great joke—human or cosmic.

He was larger than life, and he wore his own history like a mysterious cloak. He would often hint darkly to our visiting writers that he was my hired muscle, and then everybody would explode in laughter. The truth is, I always felt a certain old-fashioned chivalry in him. He cared about every member of our team, and we knew it. I’m sure he would have taken down a dragon if any of us needed him to.

Michael is a man who invested deeply in many people, and put his considerable muscle into supporting and developing the writing community here in Winnipeg. Among his many undertakings: he was a force to be reckoned with at the Writers Collective; he did a stint as Writer-in-Residence at Aqua Books; he was this year’s Literary Arts Ambassador for the Cultural Capital project; he presided over the Prairie Fire board; he coordinated the CMU School of Writing. He ran writing groups and hosted readings and mentored young writers and was almost always initiating some bright young soul into a few of the million tasks that make a community work.

I first met Michael prior to one of our THIN AIR 2005 shows. I had booked him to read from his first crime novel, An Ordinary Decent Criminal, and he stopped by the theatre to check out the stage, the microphone. I found out later that he felt inexperienced and deathly nervous, but he handled it like everything else: he researched the challenges, took them on methodically, then just trusted the universe to unfold as it should. He did a great reading—and stole our hearts in the process. That first novel garnered him some serious attention from critics and readers, and kicked off a very successful writing career. At the time of his death, he was on tour with his third novel, A Criminal to Remember. An American publisher has picked up the series, and the first book is in film development. It’s a tremendous accomplishment by any measure, and testament to his talent and determination.

Michael died yesterday at 42. All of us who knew him are stunned by his untimely death. How will we get by without his acuity, his repartee, his extraordinary kindness? Who will keep this community humming?

At the very center of his life, always, was his family: his wife, Laura, and his three kids. Their loss beggars our own. We extend to them our heartfelt sympathy, and offer our genuine thanks for sharing him with us over the past several years. He was truly a wonder.

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