Many people had a hand in bringing Helga to reality. This book would not exist without the hardworking people with Page Street Publishing: Rosie Stewart, Diberkato, Cassandra Jones, Lynne Hertzer, Haley Gundlach, Meg Palmer, Shannon Dolley, Elena Van Horn, Lauren Knowles, Lauren Cepero, and William Kiester. Thanks especially to my brilliant editor Tamara Grasty for helping me shape this book into the best version of itself.
I couldn’t have done this without my agent Erin Clyburn, who has encouraged my weird ideas since 2020. My sincere gratitude also goes out to the whole team at Howland Literary.
Helga’s beta phase included lots of different eyeballs: Thanks to Brighton Rose and Ayida Shonibar for their valuable insights as early readers and Dr. Tehnuka Ilanko for help with volcanoes (all reality-bending and errors are my own). And of course, thanks to Tom for lending your hand, eyes, or brain whenever I need it. You make everything better.