I should like to thank the Writers’ Alliance of Newfoundland and Labrador for its support of this book through its mentorship program. As that mentor, Ed Kavanagh deserves my heartiest thanks for his critical eye and helpful suggestions as he hacked his way through early drafts in the winter of 2005. Finally, thanks go to my editor at Jesperson, Annamarie Beckel, for what still seems a surreally gentle final treatment of the manuscript and its author.