ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

THANKS, GRATITUDE, AND a giant chunk of my heart to Buffy Sainte-Marie, always and forever.

Thank you to Joni Mitchell for writing the foreword to this book. As a lifelong fan of your music, this is a dream come true. Thank you to Jennifer Croll for her tough editing love and her brilliant brain, and thank you to Rob Sanders and everybody at Greystone (particularly Alice Fleerackers, Jen Gauthier, and Nayeli Jimenez) for being excited about this book from the very beginning, as well as publicists Corina Eberle, Richard Nash, and Emily Cook for their work in helping launch the book out into the world. Thank you to my agent Kris Rothstein as well as Carolyn Swayze for your support, enthusiasm, and general awesomeness. Thanks to Gilles Paquin and the Paquin team; to Michel Bruyere, Anthony King, Mark Olexson, and Kimberly Glick for opening up your touring arms to me on the road; and to everybody else I interviewed for this book: Robbie Robertson, Elaine Bomberry, Jesse Green, Debra Piapot, Ntawnis Piapot, Denise Kaufman, Taj Mahal, John Kay, Randy Bachman, Kayle Higenbotham, and Jennifer Kreisberg. Thank you to my colleagues at CBC Music for your support, and for providing a place for some of my earliest writing about Buffy Sainte-Marie. Thank you also to Exclaim! for your invitation to write about Buffy Sainte-Marie’s discography. Thank you to JB the First Lady, the First Ladies Crew, and Butterflies in Spirit for your music and art, sharing your lives with me, and trusting me with your stories. I have learned so much from you and will continue to appreciate and acknowledge your wisdom and leadership, and to do my best to assist in decolonizing music journalism and criticism.

The rest of my heart for Carlos Hernandez Fisher, who holds my hand and works through my freak-outs with me. Thank you for taking ownership of the basic maintenance of our shared lives the last two years, for editing and proofing and brainstorming. I love you. Thanks to my grandma, Lena Warner, for being interested always in everything that I do and your love and friendship, and to my sister, Jenn Warner, for your encouragement and for doing the heavy emotional lifting and literal showing up with family and shared friends while I was focused on interviewing and writing. Thank you to my mom, Elsie Warner, and my maternal grandma, Donna Allen, for your love and support. I am so grateful to Jackie Wong for your sensitive, thoughtful, careful feedback and edits, and your incredible glowing heart. Thank you to Michael Hogan for saving my bladder and sanity. And so much love to my ladies’ assemblage—Julia Browning, Holly Gordon, Mette Bach, Florence Chee, Danica Longair, Ann-Marie Spicer, Andrea Gin, Zoe Grams, Lisa Christiansen, Samantha Smith, and Melanie Copple—for the support and hugs and high fives. I am very lucky to be surrounded by great women, and you make my life better in so many ways.