Acknowledgments

 

 

 

 

I’m grateful to all those who helped shape the book through their reading and critique of various drafts. Thanks to my wonderful writers group, Caroline Bock, Danielle Stonehirsch, Monica Hogan, Cate Bloom, and Garinè Issasi, who have kept me writing and laughing over the years.

Thanks to Valerie Preiss, who in addition to being an early reader and critiquer went the extra mile to organize a reading of the manuscript by her book club, and introduced me to the concept of literary compersion; and thanks to everyone who read part or all of the book and/or discussed it at the book club meeting, including Amanda Jagusiak, Geoff Kabaservice, Suzanne Turner, Blake Stenning, C. Lee Cawley, and David Plummer.

Thanks to Philip Shade Kightlinger, who besides reading and giving feedback on the manuscript was a patient, encouraging, and supportive sounding board as I struggled to work out plot and character ideas, and who helped me visualize the Erl-King with his sketches.

Thanks to my volunteer readers and friends who gave feedback, including Jennifer Ray, Camille Stanberry Myers, Mariah Brothe, Carolina Lopez-Ruiz, Ravena Guron, and Helen Spande.

Thanks to Embark Literary Journal for featuring the first chapter of this book as an excerpt in its April 2019 issue.

Thanks to all those in my broader network of writer friends for your inspiration, advice, and showing me what good writing looks like. Thanks to the Virginia Center for Creative Arts for granting me a creative writing residency back in 2013 that helped forge many of those connections.

Thanks to my family and friends for being there.

Thanks to the scholars I never had the good fortune to meet but whose work helped inform my understanding of the historical background. I particularly enjoyed books by Philipp Blom, Robert Darnton, Dena Goodman, Maurice Lever, Joan DeJean, Anthony Pagden, and Roger Pearson (though my embroideries on the truth and any unintentional inaccuracies are not to be blamed on anyone but me).