Heartfelt thanks to—
My teachers: Bret Anthony Johnston, for steadfast support and practical wisdom; Elizabeth McCracken, for care and precision; Michael Adams, for unwavering faith. Paul Harding, Naomi Shihab Nye, and Claire Vaye Watkins.
My wonderful editor, Megha Majumdar, for embracing my work and lifting it up. David McCormick, for believing in short stories.
Classmates, for friendship and guidance, especially Ally Glass-Katz, Leah Hampton, Hannah Kenah, Lucas Loredo, Lara Prescott, and Olga Vilkotskya.
Wah-Ming Chang, Jordan Koluch, John McGhee, Katie Boland, Rachel Fershleiser, Megan Fishmann, Alisha Gorder, Alyson Forbes, Nicole Caputo, Dana Li, Kendall Storey, Laura Berry, Laura Gonzalez, and the rest of the talented, committed team at Catapult.
The Michener Center for Writers, the Keene Prize for Literature, the O. Henry Awards, the Sewanee Writers Conference, Disquiet International, the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, the Stanford Continuing Studies program, and the magazines that first published these stories, for literary and financial support.
Marla Akin, Holly Doyel, Billy Fatzinger, and James Magnuson. Emily Graff and Anjali Singh. Liz Cullingford, Noreen Cargill, Jen Grotz, Jason Lamb, Adam Latham, Don Lee, Leah Stewart, Gwen Kirby, Jill McCorkle, and Lauren Frances-Sharma. Carolyn Kuebler, Josie Mitchell, Lindsey Alexander, Sara Mang, Jenny Minton Quigley, Meera de Mel, and Jyotsna Sreenivasan. Roohi Choudhary, Sharleen Mondal, Celeste Chan, and Yu-Mei Balasingamchow.
Editors at The Times, The Post, and The Sun, for putting pressure on every written word, especially Frances Stead Sellers, Nancy Kenney, Jim Gorman, Mike Himowitz, Patricia Fanning, and the late David Corcoran.
Lydia Chavez, for telling me to trust my eyes; Sara Houghteling, for nudging me to start and always cheering me on. Jin Auh, for advocacy and encouragement.
My parents, for showing me the world, and for a childhood full of books. My siblings and first and best friends: Shuby, Swathi, and Vignesh. Sid, Sara. Family across oceans and across time. Madhav Bhanoo and the Bhanoo family, near and far.
Naina and Keshav, for reminding me that I was once a child who loved books and dreamed of writing one. And Hemant, always, for a life full of both joy and surprise.