ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In matters of bookmaking, it is hard to make “thank you” mean all it must. But I will try.

Thank you to Molly Friedrich. Your own book about your own adoptive family is what led me to you in the first place. I will always be grateful to you for that and roughly eighty billion other things.

Thank you to Amy Einhorn. You are better at your job than anyone I know. I am lucky to have you as my editor, but also I am lucky to count you as my friend.

Thank you to Lucy Carson for doing all you do and doing it so well and so warmly and with such admirable power and good humor.

Thank you to a truly all-star publishing/cheerleading team: Lori Kusatzky, Micaela Carr, Caitlin O’Shaughnessy, Clarissa Long, Laura Flavin, Sonja Flancher, Chris O’Connell, Jason Reigal, Christopher Sergio, Steven Seighman, Janel Brown, Emily Walters, Flora Esterly, Bonnie Simcock, Scottie Bowditch, and Conor Mintzer, and extra well-punctuated thanks to Jolanta Benal for copyediting that was always excellent and occasionally mind-blowing. I learned a lot.

Thank you to Marin Takikawa, Heather Carr, Dana Spector, Stephen Susco, Bridget Foley, and Kelsey Day.

I started this book at Ragdale artists’ residency, which means thanks are due to Ragdale and especially to Hannah Judy Gretz, whose incredible generosity and out-of-the-blue kindness brought me there. Alas, one week into a scheduled three-week retreat, that residency, this book, and the whole entire rest of the world were derailed by global pandemic, and so that week and the people I met during it held me up through all that came next.

Thank you to my own family family and early readers: Sue and Dave Frankel, Erin Trendler, and Lisa Corr. Thank you as always, but special thanks this time, to Dani. Myself, I won the family lottery.

And, also always and forever, thank you to Paul Mariz. You are all of the above: early reader (and late and everything in between), editor, cheerleader, consultant, best friend, best family, and favorite one.