John Milo "Mike" Ford (April 10, 1957 – September 25, 2006) was an American science fiction and fantasy writer, game designer, and poet.

A contributor to several online discussions,[2] Ford composed poems, often improvised, in both complicated forms and blank verse; he also wrote pastiches and parodies of many other authors and styles.

At Minicon and other science fiction conventions he would perform "Ask Dr. Mike", giving humorous answers to scientific and other questions in a lab coat before a whiteboard.

[4] In the mid-1970s he attended Indiana University Bloomington, where he was active in the IU science fiction club and Society for Creative Anachronism (using the name Miles Atherton de Grey); while there, he published his first short story "This, Too, We Reconcile" in the May 1976 Analog.

[7] Ford suffered from complications related to diabetes since childhood and also had renal dysfunction which required dialysis and, in 2000, a kidney transplant, which improved his quality of life considerably.

After an investigation by a journalist, Isaac Butler, Ford's editors at Tor Books were able to reconnect with his family, and in November 2019 an agreement was reached to reissue all his published works, starting in 2020 with The Dragon Waiting.