Many thanks to a small cadre of readers for help shepherding Hardland to completion. The first round of thanks goes to my critique partners: Shelley Blanton-Stroud, Gretchen Cherington, and Debra Thomas. The next round of thanks goes to readers of the earliest draft of Hardland: Janis Daly, Jim Euchner, Michelle Ferrer, Vanessa Finch, Karen Jones, Lynn Hall, Aimee Smythe, my father, author Gerald F. Sweeney, and, in a later draft, dear friend Nancy Soderlund Tupper. I also want to thank those who helped fill in holes on everything from A to Z: Bob Anderson, William Ascarza, Court Hall, Lisa O’Brien, Richard Ohlenberg, Brian Smith, Barbara Steele, Chuck Sternberg, and Michele Anne Waite. And also to Edgar R. “Frosty” Potter, whose iconic book, “Cowboy Slang,” taught me some dang colorful language used in the manuscript.
A million thanks to my husband, D. Michael Barclay, will never begin to express the gratitude I have for everything he does to support my writing life, including heavy lifting in the research department and the box-and-suitcase-carrying department. Deepest thanks go to my brilliant editor, Ellen Notbohm. I need to write a huge THANK YOU in chalk all over her neighborhood and hope it’s imprinted on her heart, in every color of the rainbow.
In the production stage, I owe many thanks to my intrepid publisher, Brooke Warner, project manager Lauren Wise Wait, cover designer Julie Metz, and the whole team/sisterhood at She Writes Press for surrounding me as Ruby’s story jumped onto the page. Also to proofreader Katrina Larsen Groen, and to my publicity team: Krista Soukup of Blue Cottage Agency, webmistress/newsletter editor Anji Verlaque, and social media manager Janis Daly for believing in Hardland and doing the hard work to get it out into the marketplace.
I would be remiss not to thank Ken Stern, editor and publisher of The La Conner Weekly News in La Conner, Washington, and Sally Cram, a friend from Soroptimist International of La Conner, Washington, who each bid on the opportunity to name two characters in Hardland at a fundraiser for La Conner Regional Library several years ago. The characters Margaret Stern and Mary Lam (with and without a ‘b’) honor their sisters.
In closing, I owe a debt of gratitude to Anne Vaughan Spilsbury, to whose memory this novel is dedicated. When I was a young woman, I spent countless hours sitting on a high stool in Anne Vaughan’s cavernous kitchen at Bay Crest in Huntington, New York, where I downed frosty glasses of iced tea and words of wisdom as her hands flew to put together yet another meal for an ever-revolving door of company. Anne Vaughan modeled a life well lived and taught me firsthand about the cost and consequences of decisions.
In addition to raising a houseful of boys, Anne Vaughan spent her days as a tireless community activist with Family Service League, American Field Service, St. John’s Episcopal Church of Huntington, and other charities. With humor, loyalty, vitality, and love, Anne Vaughan gave and gave and gave of herself. Even when she burned the candle at both ends (which was more often than not!) and later, after she received a diagnosis that would eventually claim her life, there was never a day when a friend—or a stranger—wasn’t welcomed to her love-filled table.