I’d like to thank my parents for taking me camping in the Adirondack mountains before most of the state campsites even existed. We camped by the side of a small lake, Putt’s Pond, every summer beginning when I was five years old. The same half dozen families would return every year and we all became friends, although we only saw each other once a year. We got water from a hand pump down the road and carried it to our tent site. The sanitary facilities were primitive, and we bathed in the lake. I did not understand then how lucky I was to have had those three weeks of careless abandon every year. A forest ranger came to check on us once a week or so, and one of my greatest treasures was a NY State forest ranger emblem he gave me and that my mother sewed on my sweatshirt. I never went to a summer camp like the one in this book, but I have been to the mountains.
Thank you to my editors, Ruth and Stacia, for taking such care with my work. Thanks Eva and Paula for beta reading. And thank you, Sandy, for looking after me and the biz in countless ways, and making the space for me to write.
To Lee, as always, amo te.
Radclyffe